


We See What We Want to See

by thisonegoes



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Harry, Cologne, Cute Kids, First Meetings, Haircuts, Happy Ending, Harry is a Little Shit, Hotel Sex, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Meet-Cute, Mutual Pining, Off-screen Relationship(s), Shower Sex, Smut, Strangers to Lovers, Top Zayn, seriously there is a lot of sex here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-06 12:10:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11035917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisonegoes/pseuds/thisonegoes
Summary: Tonight is about being someone different. Experiencing the world differently, with someone he’s never met. It’s about igniting a fire in his belly again, proving that he can be fun and spontaneous. It’s to prove to himself that his troubled marriage isn’t the only thing that can take up his consciousness.Tonight, he’s not married.





	We See What We Want to See

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alnima](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alnima/gifts).



> Alnima! I hope you like this! I took your fifth prompt, since it was a little more free-form, and tried to come up with something that hit all of your specific interests. I wanted to give you a satisfying story, from beginning to end. I hope I did. Just know there is quite a bit of smut here! Enjoy!
> 
> Many thanks to my beta, she knows who she is.
> 
> Yay for the Zarry Fic Exchange!!! :)

**1.**

 

"Of all the gin joints..." drifts the soft, amused voice over Harry's shoulder.

Caught off guard, Harry inhales a sharp breath and closes his eyes. He has to ready himself for this. He has to be prepared. The ice in his drink rattles (a vodka seven, thank you, definitely not gin), and prays no one can tell it's because of his trembling hand.

The Downtown glitters this time of night, sat atop one of the finest hotels in the city. The slick reflection of the glass bar dances across the walls made of windows overlooking the bustle forty stories below. It's beautiful, a bit ostentatious, one of those niche establishments where out-of-town business magnates bring their mistresses to show off to no one in particular. It has a duality to it: the type of dim, quiet place where couples dining at small tables can't take their eyes off each other, contrasted against the young singles at the bar who stare at every attractive stranger to pass by.

Couples. Loners.

The conversations, the flirting, it all leads to the same thing, the same place: to far off bedrooms or to overpriced hotel rooms a few floors below.

Harry has to set his face, so he gives himself three more seconds with his eyes closed. He has a part to play, the role of a lifetime, the chance to do something he's been aching for since June of last year. He can’t think about work, or home with its stifled silence. He especially can’t be angry or resent the fact that he hasn’t seen his amazing, gifted, beautiful children in over two weeks.

Not tonight.

Tonight is about being someone different. Experiencing the world differently, with someone he’s never met. It’s about igniting a fire in his belly again, proving that he can be fun and spontaneous. It’s to prove to himself that his troubled marriage isn’t the only thing that can take up his consciousness.

Tonight, he’s not married.

Harry sets his drink on the bar and breathes. He can do this. He did it for years when he was young, met strangers in college bars and kept it “no strings.” He can do it now. He can let a strange man approach him for a night of casual sex, something he’ll feel for weeks, if and when he’s finally allowed back into his real life. So Harry resolutely tugs at his lapels and then adjusts his Cartier cuff links, before turning towards the voice.

And what a beautiful face it belongs to.

He leans against the bar a few feet from Harry with an arm draped lazily on the glass top, and he honest to god takes Harry's breath away. Harry gawks at him, this gorgeous man standing before him with ink black hair, large eyes, and tattooed hands. He wears a grin, like maybe he had just heard a terrible joke, and eyes Harry right back. Maybe he expects a response, or for Harry to finish the "Casablanca" quote. To play along.

But it's too early for Harry to play, so he stays silent. He stares at the new man, a brand new man, still wearing that half-smile like he can't decide if he should laugh at his own pickup line or not.

Harry blinks and notes the suit, new with its clean lines, as dense and colorless as a black hole, with a white and grey patterned shirt underneath. Cartier cuff links that match his own, which the man fiddles at with long, lithe fingers. In a daze, Harry catches himself licking his fucking lips, his eyes traveling up and down the man’s torso. He’s so beautiful, so ethereally striking, Harry’s teeth ache. Strangely, unexpectedly, Harry feels himself begin to tear up, thoughts of _I can’t believe this is happening, you have a spouse who loves you, even if you’ve been fighting, you made a promise for better or worse, who am I, how am I here?_ He counts to five and coughs into his fist, before blinking the emotion away.

The man’s smile falters slightly, at the look in Harry’s eye. But Harry shakes his head to ignore it. He has to make this good, has to make this count. He has to be a different person tonight, not fuck up Harry Styles, who has a real life with children waiting on him. Harry isn’t Harry tonight.

So he takes a step closer.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asks in that low, sensual voice of his.

The man no longer half-smiles and instead spreads his lips as wide as they’ll go. Harry can see his tongue peeking through them and his dick twitches in his briefs.

“What are you having?” the man responds, his head tilting towards Harry’s drink resting on the bar.

“Vodka.”

“Vodka, hmmm? What’s your brand?”

Harry angles his body closer.

“Belvedere,” he gestures, shaking the ice once more. It practically sings to him, to both of them, as the man nods like he approves.

Harry waves over at the gentleman tending the bar, points to his drink and holds up two fingers. Smirks. The mid-forties bartender with wavy brown hair smiles slightly as he moves towards them, reaching for two tumblers to fill with ice. Harry’s grateful for his eternal “baby face” at that moment, when not even thirty seconds later, two drinks are slid across the bar into their hands. The man, _Ben_ says his name tag, nods with a wink. He tries to hide it, but he’s clearly ruffled from Harry’s undivided attention as he hands over a fifty, and moves away. He goes to help a woman in a tight red dress, sitting alone at the other end of the bar, waiting for her own stranger to approach and make a move. Two men seem to be circling nearby, so she’s sure to have some company soon. She won’t be lonely for long.

Harry sips at his new drink and can’t help but smile into it. Mature men have a way of bending at that particular smirk, the eyebrow dance, the dimples. It’s worked like a charm for years; Harry can’t help but do it, even in the company of another man attempting to hit on him. Harry takes another large gulp, his nerves dissipating with each swallow. It’s better now, since Harry likes to have a new drink in his hand immediately after he finishes the one before it.

Harry sends a final wink to the bartender, as he glances over to check on them. When it comes to bartenders, Harry's face is his advantage.

As if on cue, “Casablanca” moves closer to Harry. Jealous. Miffed, maybe, at being ignored. It’s clearly not something he’s used to. Harry meets his eyes and they darken slightly, which is exactly what Harry wanted. The stranger clinks his glass against Harry’s, a silent toast, and then he too takes a long drink.

They both step closer. The stranger lifts his hand and tucks a tuft of hair behind Harry’s ear, his eyes roaming the slight curls, bare neck, the piece flopping over Harry’s eyes.

“Your hair is… lovely,” he says quietly, eyes sparkling.

Harry’s stomach does a slight somersault, like he’d just stepped off an escalator too quickly. His cheeks heat up, and it’s pretty ridiculous, to feel shy about a new haircut. He’s not _eleven_.

“It’s new,” he mumbles, shaking his head to rake a hand through it. He used to feel curls bouncing around his shoulders at that sort of movement. He’s still getting used to it.

The man smiles at him and stays just as close, in Harry’s space.

Suddenly their body heat mixes just right and the scent hits Harry across the cheek like a slap. He falters slightly as he catches a whiff of strong cologne. _Intoxicating_ , mind-bending, fuck-me-over-a-table cologne. It’s a scent that sends Harry falling off a cliff, an aroma of spice, pepper, maybe some kind of wood. It’s something so masculine and primal, it takes the entirety of Harry’s willpower, to stand still and not pounce on this man like a fucking jackal.

The man notices the shift in Harry’s obscene expression, the way he bends at the waist towards him and inhales deeply. “Casablanca” tilts his head and does that half-smile again, before leaning in so that his chest presses into Harry’s. To get the scent _on_ Harry.

“Dior Sauvage,” he murmurs towards Harry’s ear, his lips not quite touching, before stepping back.

“S’nice,” Harry nods dumbly as he inhales again, losing his train of thought. He wasn’t expecting that kind of assault on all of his senses at once: the man’s smile, his smell, the way he taps a finger at the back of Harry’s right hand. Like he wants to touch, to hold it, or tuck it into his own pants.

Harry tries to school his face back into neutral, safe territory. He tilts his head and smiles, plays it cool. Like he does this all time: meets strange men in bars, to take back to the twenty-third floor hotel room he put on his second credit card because it has a dangerously high limit.

It’s the one with the bill that isn’t looked over by anyone other than himself.

“What’s your name?” the man asks, voice practically a fucking _purr_.

Harry opens his mouth, tries to decide on how to sell his lie. He knew he wasn’t going to be Harry Styles tonight, that he could be anyone. But he stupidly hadn’t thought of a name. Maybe he’s John Smith. Or David Johnson. His left hand drifts up to his mouth, he pinches at his bottom lip like he does whenever he needs a second to think.

Suddenly the man stops smiling, steps back entirely, removes his finger from Harry’s other wrist.

His eyes drift to Harry’s hand, where he has his fingers dancing over his mouth.

“So you’re married, then,” he says, voice hard.

Harry’s jaw drops. He forgot to take off his _fucking wedding ring._ The one thing he was supposed to do before walking into this bar and he _fucking forgot._ He quickly shoves his left hand into his pants pocket, his mouth gaping for something to say. All he can come up with is _mother fucking shit, how the fuck did I forget to leave it next to our bathroom sink at home, I’m a fucking idiot, fuck fuck fuck._

They blink at each other for a few seconds, unsure.

And then surprisingly, the man’s demeanor changes once again. It’s like he decides something for himself, his face not as hard. He moves forward and is even closer to Harry than before, their thighs touching, his breath near Harry’s neck.

“Well so am I,” he says quietly, removing Harry’s hand from his pocket, as Harry gasps at the admission. This stranger then links their fingers together like he doesn’t care after all, like maybe he too has something to hide.

Harry closes his eyes once more, overwhelmed at the shift between them. "Casablanca's"  _me too,_ the fact that they’re both married and stepping outside of their vows. Only a minute before, they were two men meeting up in a bar, seeing where things could lead. Two single, easygoing, no-strings-attached men about to fuck each other until they could barely stand, ready and willing to keep their mouths shut.

But now they’re cheating. They’re _cheaters._

He squeezes Harry’s hand tighter, like maybe he wants to feel Harry’s ring against his skin. And as he says it, he makes sure to stare Harry in the eye.

“I’m Zayn Malik. Who are you?”

Harry swallows the lump in his throat, thrown off from such intimate intensity.

He’ll have to go with the truth, then.

“Harry Styles,” he answers, easing Zayn’s grip so that he can pull them closer. Chest to chest, so that anyone walking by could whisper for them to get a room, to ease up on the eye-fucking in a semi-crowded bar.

As it is, Harry rather likes showing off like this and they’ll get to his room eventually. He came here for this, so he might as well go big. He’s with someone new, no conversations about high school or where he grew up. He doesn’t know what Zayn does, who he is, how he ended up here. It’s just this. Bodies touching, two people in the throes of instant attraction. He shifts a thigh between Zayn’s, this stranger with the kind eyes and heavenly bottom lip, and tries to lean in to bite at it.

Zayn shakes his head. His eyes drift over Harry’s shoulder, to the couples having dinner, the single people mingling, the far off lights of their sprawling city. They’re painfully in public, which Zayn must not enjoy so much. He gives that half-smile of his again, which has Harry’s knees buckling slightly, and then he’s whispering in Harry’s ear.

“Shall we move this somewhere more private?”

“I have a room. I have – I got a room earlier, downstairs,” Harry stammers, his cock filling up thick between his legs. Fuck, it’s a blessing in disguise because he probably wouldn’t last much longer anyways. He needs it, he’s _craved_ it for so long. Connecting again, intimacy, a body on top of his in a fancy hotel room. Uninterrupted, his children asleep miles away instead of knocking on the door for an hour. A room he doesn’t have to _clean_ afterwards, a room not covered in stray Cheerios, sticky building blocks, random dog toys.

The thought of his kids has Harry tensing up again, his heart clenched he misses them so much.

But he has to focus.

Harry winds his hand around the back of Zayn’s neck, has Zayn gasping, right as Zayn changes their positions slightly. He presses Harry’s upper back up against the bar so that he can hide the movement of his hand. He reaches between Harry’s legs and squeezes until Harry grunts into his ear. Fuck, it feels good. It’s indecent, lewd, completely insane, to let this man grab his crotch in a fucking bar. And yet Harry presses into it, hurtles himself up and forward like a shot put.

“Yeah,” Harry finally answers, realizing Zayn had asked a question.

“Lead the way,” Zayn smirks as he removes his hand and steps back. He throws the last mouthful of his drink back, swallows so that his neck looks obscene, and then smiles fully.

Harry’s eyes darken, he shifts his cock under the waistband of his briefs like a horny teenager, and grabs for Zayn’s damp hand.

Harry leads the way towards the elevators because it’s his room they’re going to fuck around in, and he has the key. He might be out of his comfort zone, he might already sort of miss his real life, he might even regret this in the morning.

But despite it all, Harry leads and Zayn follows.

 

**2.**

 

The song playing in the elevator as it descends from the penthouse bar, is honestly so ridiculous, Zayn almost covers his face with his hands. He’s not sure whether to pretend it’s not playing or to cry with nervous laughter, as “Unchained Melody” hits the first chorus.

Beside him, Harry bristles slightly, squaring his shoulders, adjusting his tie. He stares straight ahead, resolutely ignoring the music and the open glass behind them as the city blurs from the movement. Afraid of heights, Zayn notes.

It’s just ironic to hear the first song he danced to at his wedding playing from an overhead speaker, as he’s whisked away to a Luxor hotel room by a man who he hit on via “Casablanca.”

This is how his life goes now, apparently: ignoring the pain of his beating heart, as he more or less cheats on his better half with a gorgeous stranger in a too-tight patterned suit. Pretending like his phone isn’t about to vibrate from another text featuring pictures of his smiling children. This isn’t how he thought the night would go. But once Harry admitted he was doing this outside of the confines of his marriage, well at least Zayn had someone to share it with. Equal footing.

Having never done this before, he hadn’t realized a night like this would feel so... nerve-wracking. Purposeful. And sure, even though Zayn’s marriage isn’t exactly the healthiest relationship at moment, and _he_ definitely isn’t the problem, it still feels… strange to make the conscious decision to pretend to be someone he’s not.

Zayn’s stomach twists into a knot, no longer smiling.

Without second guessing himself anymore than he already has this evening, he moves to stand behind Harry fully. He reaches a hand to Harry’s lower back, presses, his thumb running along the seam of Harry’s checkered jacket. He also links their left hands, Harry’s wedding ring a stark reminder of what they both decided to do tonight.

Harry doesn’t tense up at the proximity, doesn’t shift away like he’s changed his mind. He leans back against Zayn, which Zayn considers a win.

“You…” Zayn tries to say, his head shaking slightly, unsure. He wants to tell Harry he’s gorgeous, stunning, the most delicious man in that bar. He wants to ease Harry’s guilty conscience, ease his own, try to get across that it’s just for tonight, just for now. He wants to tell Harry all the ways he wants to have him, every inch of skin he wants to savor with his tongue, smear Harry with the new cologne he bought that made Harry hard in front of all those people.

Harry doesn’t let him get much farther, though. Zayn’s mouth snaps shut as Harry turns and pushes him up against the glass of the elevator.

Zayn inhales sharply through his nose as Harry returns the favor from before: a rough palm over Zayn’s cock that swiftly turns into a full grip. His fingers dance under Zayn’s balls, pressing hard, until Zayn is practically up on his tiptoes.

“Do you want to fuck me?” Harry asks, his lip catching on Zayn’s, like the whisper of a first kiss.

Zayn nods.

“How?”

Zayn nods again, his head full of so many possibilities, it’s hard to choose just one. Harry must not like that, so he crowds closer, grips Zayn’s dick and balls harder, and lowers his chin.

“How?” he asks again, like Zayn better answer because it’s the last time he’ll ask nicely.

Zayn nudges Harry’s nose with his own, catches his breath and goes to grab at Harry’s hair. He scrambles for a second, catching only bare neck, until he clutches the back of Harry’s short hair and pulls.

An eye for eye, Zayn thinks. _You shove, I’ll pull._

“I’m gonna fuck you,” Zayn says on a quick exhale, his wedding song hitting the last chorus, “as hard as you can take it. Might even give you a safe word. And then I’m gonna come all over that pretty face.”

Harry nods frantically, his eyes wild and crazed.

_Go on._

“I’m gonna fuck you until you can’t sit still.”

Harry nods.

“And when you come, I want you to see it. Want you to watch.”

Harry nods a final time, and Zayn thinks they’re finally going to kiss.

But right then the doors _ding_ , and they arrive on the twenty-third floor. They need to hurry, he needs to get his mouth on Harry somewhere, anywhere. Harry, even more in a hurry than Zayn, exits at the sound of voices. He grabs Zayn’s hand once more, as another couple strides onto the elevator with knowing smiles.

Zayn could die at the stunning sight of Harry’s neck and face all red and flushed from embarrassment, tinged with arousal. He can’t wait to get started.

They quickly sidestep the other couple to hurry down the hall.

 

**3.**

 

Zayn perches on the end of the bed, leans back on his hands, and crosses his ankles. He watches Harry make their drinks with silent amusement, the candles on the small bar sending light dancing across his face. He notes Harry’s nervous feet as he babbles about making a “mean Old Fashioned,” all the while knocking the glasses together on accident and spilling more bourbon than he means to.

The room is as gorgeous as Zayn imagined. Clean lines, plush furniture, one of the higher end suites by the looks of it. Harry must’ve gone all out for this room, complete with a fully stocked bar, a jacuzzi tub, and a shower that could fit a whole football team. The walls are mostly white, except for the wall of floor-length windows to his right that look out onto the city. This hotel is known for the 360 view. The bar from earlier, the elevators, and the rooms themselves: everything exposed with massive windows to make the building one big mirror. It’s quiet, far away car horns and music blasting from speakers muted to a dull murmur. Zayn relishes in silence. Open, quiet spaces where he can clear his mind, settle, feel a little like his old self. It’s like his office uptown, when he has moments to himself before he has to go home to his hurricane of a house. He loves it, his kids and the dog, the games they play and the songs they all sing together. But lately he’s been handling most of it alone, and well… it’s a loud life.

Zayn shakes his head, forcing himself to focus.

This kind of room will lend itself well to their night ahead. Fucking, maybe some light conversation over a tray of room service, fucking again. Talking. Maybe they’ll talk after. Later.

Zayn’s stomach does another twist, as he adjusts his hands on the bedspread and watches Harry turn.

Harry walks towards him with their drinks, his lip between his teeth. Zayn uncrosses his legs and spreads them, so Harry has a nice harbor to dock in. Harry steps between his knees, hovers above him, as they clink their glasses together. Zayn can’t stop staring up at him: his jawline, the slight fuzz on his chin, his ears, the intensity of his eyes. Green, maybe blue in the right light.

Zayn also can’t get over the hair. It’s like Harry knows, because he tilts his face to the side, gives Zayn more to see. Short, cropped above his neck, messy from his nervous hands running through it. Zayn honestly can’t wait to bury his hands in it, mess it up even more, pull at it until Harry’s eyes leak.

Harry must know that as well, because he nods for Zayn to quickly finish his drink. Zayn feels like being a little shit, have a little payback since he’s felt so powerless for so long, in so many ways.

So he takes his time. Gulps at it twice and then sucks on the orange rind, just because. Harry gives him a rather incensed look, which has Zayn smiling. He thinks he rather likes Harry, if he’s honest. It’s a comforting thought, that even beyond instant attraction and random, casual sex, maybe their personalities mesh regardless.

Zayn shifts the rind in his mouth, so that it covers his teeth and he smiles with it. Sav always laughs when he does that over breakfast, which then makes his two little ones giggle. Harry pretends not to see it, just blinks impatiently. He waits for Zayn to dispose of the orange in his glass, and then moves quicker than Zayn’s seen so far. He plucks the empty glass from Zayn’s hand so he can return them to the bar.

On his way back to the bed, he toes off his boots and undoes his cufflinks. Zayn’s mouth begins to water, his heart rate whirring fast like a humming bird’s. It’s finally time, he finally gets to watch Harry get naked, spreading his shirt open to reveal himself, to give everything to Zayn that he hasn’t had in so long. They’re both aching for it, Zayn can tell by the tent in Harry’s ridiculous suit pants.

Harry settles between his legs again and Zayn moves up off his hands on the bed and places them into his lap, so he can rub them together with anticipation for something he can’t even comprehend. He stares up at Harry through his long eyelashes, bats them even, to be a fucking tease. But Harry doesn’t continue, doesn’t undress, just stands there with his arms down at his sides.

“What are you waiting for?” he says nonchalantly, smiling again.

Zayn scoffs slightly, but understands. He returns the smile, since he has to put some work in, apparently. With level hands and without breaking eye contact, Zayn reaches for the tie first. Black silk, as expensive as the rest of him, tied just so and ready to be removed by someone else’s hands. Zayn winds it around his wrist for a moment, to see how it would feel to be tied to the headboard with it, and makes sure to give Harry a rather wicked look. _Maybe later?_

Harry quirks an eyebrow, but doesn’t respond. Zayn tosses it to the floor.

“You know, if you think I’m about to suck your dick without _kissing_ you first, you have another thing coming,” Zayn says with a sarcastic shrug, as he goes for Harry’s lapels. He shoves at them so Harry can shrug the jacket off and stand in just his crisp, white shirt.

Harry runs a hand through Zayn’s hair, as Zayn inhales him, catches a whiff of unfamiliar soap. He goes to pull the shirt from Harry’s pants, to untuck and unbutton. Zayn watches his own fingers fumbling at the shirt, one button after the other, until Harry can shrug it off as well. In a few hushed, reverent moments, Zayn catches himself running his palms up Harry’s stomach, over tattoos and scars. Zayn feels his own face fall, like this is wrong and maybe they should… talk first.

But then Harry’s shaking his head and smiling, leaning down at the waist to grab Zayn’s face between his hands. Finally, fucking _finally_ , Harry brings their mouths together in a heated kiss. Zayn inhales, right as Harry exhales, their tongues meeting in the middle. Zayn digs his fingers into Harry’s wrists, holds on, and makes sure Harry knows: _this is the best kiss you’ll ever have with me, the first one, when I’m about to get you naked._

Harry breaks away first, his mouth red, so that he can stand up straight and jut his hips at Zayn’s face. He knows he looks good, his flat stomach and toned chest, like Zayn should kiss him everywhere, like he can’t help himself with his urging Zayn to continue. Like it’s definitely not the time to talk yet.

So Zayn does. He bites his lip and he does. He has a part to play. He should’ve learned his lines ahead of time.

With renewed determination and the swelling of his own cock trapped under his briefs, Zayn goes for Harry’s belt. The buckle makes that _gorgeous_ sound Zayn’s chased after his whole fucking adult life. It’s such a simple thing; it’s something Zayn hears every day when he takes off his own clothes before a shower. And maybe that’s it, maybe that’s why he loves it so much: it’s the utterly mundane sound that leads to another man giving something over to him, the clanking of metal, the slide of it through belt loops, until it’s thrown away.

It’s a beautiful sight, to watch Harry The Stranger’s clothing collect in a pile, one item after the other on the floor near his boots. Zayn thinks the pants and an expensive pair of briefs will follow, as he pops the final button and tugs on the zipper. He isn’t prepared at all, to discover that Harry isn’t wearing anything under his pants. Just skin. Soft skin hot to the touch, as Zayn rakes his fingernails through the coarse hair sitting just above his dick. Harry inhales a breath, his hands now on Zayn’s shoulders for balance.

Zayn thought he’d have a few more seconds to savor Harry’s body without any rush, that he’d be able to kiss at Harry’s navel and tease him a bit before removing the final bit of clothing covering him up. But he smiles despite himself, the heady scent of man becoming too strong, as he moves the pants down Harry’s bare thighs. They too are thrown into the pile.

Zayn makes a sound in the back of his throat, his hands winding around strong thighs, a thick, cut cock staring him in the face. He’s still dressed, feet on the floor, still sitting there on the bed in his custom suit, with a man he’s never met standing stark naked in front of him. He leans in to kiss Harry’s navel after all, his tongue leaving wet marks around his bellybutton, at the jut of his hips, over a couple of laurel tattoos. Delicious, warm, salty from sweat and anticipation. He steers clear of the written script on Harry’s upper right rib cage because he really can’t read any names at the moment. He just can’t. So he kisses the opposite side and sinks his teeth in.

Harry must get it, as he places a hand over the tattooed letters and hisses, before moving Zayn’s head down. Like he wants Zayn’s mouth pressing into the rough hair above his dick.

Harry lets Zayn’s mouth wander, until he can’t stand it.

“How about I do the socks,” Harry says gruffly above him, a smile in his face.

Zayn, with his face pressed into Harry’s hip, smiles until Harry can feel his teeth once more. It gives him a few seconds to breathe, to collect himself and smooth his hair and hope to god that his phone on the nightstand is on silent. Harry steps aside to remove both socks. He tosses them over his shoulder wantonly, before crowding between Zayn’s legs like before. But this time, he has his cock in his hand, feeling himself a bit, showing off. He holds it like a present, like he brought it especially for Zayn, which is fucking ridiculous and yet fucking hot at the same time. Zayn has always gotten off on confidence, a man’s conviction that he alone can please Zayn Malik until his eyes cross.

Many have tried, but only a few have succeeded.

Zayn watches with wide eyes, his heart rate still a bit too frenzied. He can feel the heat on the back of his neck heading towards the dip in his back. It’s where he always begins to sweat first. It’s nice, to not show it on his forehead or underarms, when he’s nervous or speaking in front of a room full of music execs. But it’s not so nice now, when he knows he’ll be removing his shirt soon, sweaty and sticky for Harry to deduce as him being nervous, scared, or unprepared.

Zayn’s not scared. This was his plan all along. He _chose_ to do this. He’s not thinking about anything else, not work and definitely nothing back home. Not his wedding ring, which he left next to the bathroom sink right before he left the house. Not the kids, or the mortgage, or the fighting.

He’s not scared. And his mind is blissfully blank. All he thinks about is Harry. Harry’s cropped hair and his dick and the red twinge of his lips.

“Y’like it?” Harry mumbles around the sound of his hand on his dick, the other coming up to cup Zayn’s cheek.

Zayn licks his lips and nods, his eyes never leaving Harry’s twisting hand. It’s fucking sinful, how Harry moves it just so. The head of his cock comes in and out of view as he palms at himself.

“When was the last time you had one in your mouth, hmmm?” Harry asks.

Zayn tears his eyes away from the show, to look Harry in the eye as he says it.

“A long time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Zayn nods, his expression hard.

“Why not? How can a man not want to fuck this lovely face of yours every single night?”

Harry must not realize what he said. Or how he said it. Zayn tightens his hands around the back of Harry’s thighs until he’s sure Harry can feel his blunt nails digging into his skin. Harry hisses slightly, still not getting it, as he glances down to watch himself fuck into his fist.

“Maybe I have a wife,” Zayn says with an edge to his voice, as Harry meets his eyes. “Maybe I fuck _her_ mouth. Maybe I haven’t had a dick in me in so long, I can’t even remember how to do it.”

Harry’s hand falters at that, his cheeks go pink.

“I didn’t mean…”

Zayn watches him squirm, uncomfortable at the swerve in their conversation. Zayn doesn’t want to talk about his life outside of this hotel room, he’s not _supposed_ to, and Harry can’t stop fucking reminding him of what he’s doing. Zayn should be angry about it, or at least hold some contempt for the person willing to do this with him. Maybe resentment. Zayn wonders if that’s where Harry’s head is at as well, another man who set out to fuck around in a strange hotel room across town. Maybe it’s not just lust that’s gotten them this far, and is instead mutual disdain.

But as they continue to stare at each other, Harry’s hand stilled, a different emotion bubbles up to the surface, like maybe it weighs less. It’s surprise, mostly. Zayn doesn’t dislike Harry at all. He’s overwhelmed with surprise, with how much he wants this person in front of him. It’s in the way Harry holds his face like it’s precious, how they both seem to be in this delicate place between submission and aggression. Pressing buttons, toeing the edge of what’s okay, an unspoken agreement to make this good. To make it _worth it._

Zayn doesn’t want to talk anymore, so he rubs his hands over the back of Harry’s thighs. He soothes the marks he made with his fingernails. And opens his mouth, to lay his tongue flat.

This is his night, their night, and he wants to make the most of it.

Play the part.

Harry’s expression turns again, back into lust and need and _passion_.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Harry says quietly. He’s back to playing his part as well. He knows his lines. He shifts his hand so that his thumb runs over Zayn’s top lip and then down to his tongue, for him to suck on it. He says, “Yeah, that’s it. You have a mouth made for this. I knew you couldn’t have a wife.”

He strokes his cock a few more times, gets himself back to full hardness, before using his thumb to open Zayn up again. He presses the tip onto Zayn’s tongue next to his thumb, and grunts. He grunts when Zayn flicks his tongue up, not one to keep still for long, and plays with the underside of the head. It’s fucking delicious, since Zayn told the truth: he really hasn’t had a cock in his mouth in quite some time.

Zayn does it a few more times, his wide, flat tongue swirling around the head, sucking it for exactly two seconds, flicking his tongue at the slit. And then he does it a few times more, until Harry’s entire body trembles to stand up straight. Zayn pulls off and smirks.

“You like it?” he says, batting his eyes, kissing the tip of Harry’s cock to collect the first drop of pre come.

Harry makes a sound like he’s impatient, grips Zayn by the hair and tries to guide it between Zayn’s lips. But Zayn digs his nails into Harry’s thighs again to keep him still.

“Bet you don’t have a wife either,” Zayn challenges him. “Too willing, too good at grabbing my dick in an elevator to have a wife waiting.”

Harry bites his lip.

“You want me to suck you off now?” Zayn asks. “You need it? Your husband not giving it to you at home?”

Harry’s chest and neck flush so quickly, heat practically emanates off of his body, ready to paint Zayn red with it. He looks like he wants to say something in response to that, maybe yell at Zayn, grab his jaw roughly, tell Zayn to mind his own fucking business.

But he doesn’t. He resigns himself to the position he’s in: the naked one of the two, vulnerable, his dick out and an inch away from a pair of lips. Harry blinks. He bites his lip harder and nods.

Zayn still doesn’t want to talk about what it’s been like at home, and clearly Harry doesn’t either. _Good._

“You gonna fuck my face before I fuck you on this bed?” Zayn continues. “Before I make you face the windows and watch yourself come?”

Harry nods, his hair wilting from sweat, eyes excited.

Zayn gives his classic half-smile and brings a hand up right away, to roll Harry’s balls in his fingers as he sinks down onto him. Zayn can suck dick like no one else, or so he’s been told, his throat long and muscled, a gag reflex other men have openly envied. His eyelashes flutter as he licks at the smooth, hot skin Harry’s placed between his lips. He sucks at the head, flicks his tongue again, before lowering back down. He keeps that rhythm going, since rhythm is another one of his strong suits.

Harry breathes through it, barely, and Zayn has stray thoughts of words like _inhaler_ and _be careful, babe._ But he keeps it to himself, hums onto Harry’s cock as Harry pulls roughly at his hair. Zayn concentrates, makes sure to clamp his eyes shut so he feels everything: Harry’s hands, the trembling of Harry’s thigh, the weight of his balls in his palm. Zayn knows when it’s time to give them a bit more attention, his mouth popping off of Harry’s cock almost comically, before moving down to suck his balls into his mouth.

Harry moans at it, his hands tightening in Zayn’s hair until it aches, and throws his head back. Zayn licks at them, presses a finger to Harry’s perineum, before swallowing him down again. He does that thing he learned back in school, when his T.A. in Music Theory gave him pointers. The first time they fucked around in the orchestra pit, Graham said to suck harder and envision a high C note in his head. Zayn’s lived by it ever since: _moan a high C and you’ll have him coming in no time._

Zayn almost smirks at it, his mouth full of dick, as he does just that. He hums it high and clear, which causes Harry to cry out, his back arching. The note reverberates through them both, his vocal cords and throat work together to tilt back, to open up, to reach it. It lets Zayn get Harry so deep, the head bumping into his throat so forcefully, Zayn’s pretty sure Harry feels the note in his fucking _toes_.

That’s his cue. Zayn stops with the theatrics and does the final move he knows so well. He grabs Harry’s ass with one hand and the base of his cock in the other, to pull Harry into him and suck him off properly. Harry is close, Zayn can tell, the way he seizes up again and again. Zayn keeps his head down, suctions and pulls Harry off with his hand in one smooth motion.

“I’m gonna come, I’m gonna come,” Harry practically groans, his fingers curling in Zayn’s hair almost like he wants to stop himself from coming too soon.

Zayn doesn’t want to stop.

He moves faster, pretends to choke a bit even though his throat is just fine, thank you. Men love that sound, he should know, so Zayn does it again and again. He’s rewarded for his efforts when Harry finally snaps his hips forward to fuck his face. Zayn loves it, fucking loves the force behind it, so he moans around Harry as a drop of saliva dribbles down his chin.

Harry’s entire body freezes in mid thrust, both hands on the back of Zayn’s head, as he comes in his mouth. Zayn takes it, he heaves in and out through his nose as he keeps the suction of his lips and throat tight. He wants Harry to feel his orgasm splashing, soaking Zayn on the inside. Harry wheezes, he thrusts through it in short bursts, forcing his hot come to the back of Zayn’s tongue until his throat contracts around him like it needs to work to swallow a pill.

Zayn’s eyes almost roll back in his head at the sensation, the trickle of it, the rhythmic swallowing that feels like a lock and key stuck together. Like Zayn’s throat won’t ever let Harry go. And it doesn’t, until Harry’s hissing to release him. Zayn eventually does, his jaw goes slack as he loosens the hold in his throat. Harry drags it out slowly, his fingers at the base of his cock to make sure Zayn appreciates it. How one minute he was full of Harry, and now he’s empty.

Zayn sags slightly, as he realizes his back and abs were engaged literally the entire time. He slumps forward and breathes through his mouth against the crease of Harry’s hip. Harry pets at the hair sticking to his forehead a bit, his breathe ragged as well, until Zayn can’t stand it anymore. It’s sweet, too sweet and loving. Tender. So he pulls his face away from Harry’s skin and falls back onto the bed with his arms spread wide.

He rests his eyes and grins towards the ceiling.

 

**4.**

 

Harry hasn’t come that hard in weeks. Months, actually. It was the kind of orgasm that felt like it was ripped out of him by sheer force of will. It’s like the time he went fishing with Gemma when he was a kid and while he stood there with his toes at the gross, mossy lake shore, a rogue fishhook caught him in the earlobe. Before he could scream at her to stop pulling the line, with her back to him, she jerked the pole up to cast the line into the lake. It ripped right through the skin, tore it in half, his entire body flying forward from the momentum.

It’s like _that_ , except it doesn’t hurt. And nothing bleeds. And no one screams their head off, as Harry stumbles around with his hands over his ears.

Harry loses his train of thought after an especially rousing sexual encounter, which he realizes as he shakes his head to snap out of it. He looks down at Zayn sprawled on the bed, his feet still planted on the floor, with a blissful look on his face. Harry stands there naked, panting, his cock covered in Zayn’s spit and his own come, and Zayn splays on the bed as if he just won a trophy for it. First place. Gold medal.

This is new to Harry, having sex anywhere other than his bed at home, and he’s not sure how the post-coitus shit works. If he’s supposed to cuddle up to Zayn or make conversation. If he should immediately repay the favor, or go make a few more drinks first.

It’s one of the most ridiculous conundrums he’s ever had to face, and honestly, his therapist will get such a kick out of it.

Zayn pulls him out of his head yet again, with a socked foot that he must’ve slipped out of his boots just then. He pokes at Harry’s rib cage, the laurel of his right hip, the butterfly in the middle of his chest. _Moth_ , Harry thinks indignantly. Zayn’s quirked eyebrow says otherwise, _it’s a butterfly, babe._ And Harry smiles at that, tilts his chin down so that he can bounce his pec muscles, to “make its wings flutter.” It’s just like he did the first time he showed it to –

Zayn presses his entire foot in the center of Harry’s chest, so that he stumbles slightly, to stop thinking so loud. Harry gets it and knows what to do. He crawls up onto the king bed, on all fours to hover over Zayn. He looks Zayn in the eye, studies his stubbled, perfectly symmetrical face a bit, so that he can store it in the vault inside his brain. The one for memories of a past life, maybe.

He does the same to Zayn as Zayn did to him: tie first, then pulls at his jacket so that Zayn awkwardly wrestles it off and throws it to the floor, before going button by button. He starts at the top though, and works his way down. The shirt is exquisite, brand new and tailored, Harry can tell. Like someone stood Zayn up on a pedestal and scurried around him with a tape measure, preened him like he was about to walk a red carpet. Harry is careful not to rip out any buttons, even as he feels his dick already starting to fill up again where it rubs against Zayn’s. Zayn, now with his hands running up and down Harry’s thighs, watches him like a hawk. They both know it’s expensive, the entire outfit is expensive, and Harry better respect it.

Harry gets enveloped in that overwhelming scent of _man_ again, of power and authority, when he opens Zayn’s shirt and inhales that fucking cologne. He gives Zayn a quick peck on the lips, since he has other pressing matters to attend to, and then bites at Zayn’s tattooed neck, his chin, down to the wings on his chest. It’s like Zayn fucking bathed in cologne after his shower before heading to the bar, which should be gross or overpowering, and yet is so right, so Zayn, that Harry feels like he could bathe in it too. He knows then, as he kisses at Zayn’s nipples, left and then right, his eyes shut tight, that if he ever smells this cologne out on the street, on any other man, he’ll remember this. His dick will be in his hand at the next available opportunity, and Zayn, _this_ Zayn on _this_ night in _this_ bed, will flash in front of his eyes. Perfect, laid out with his shirt open and his clothed cock pressing up firmly against Harry’s.

Harry then works his way down. He bites at each pec, bites both nipples until they’re red and plump. Zayn’s back arches each time and Harry can’t help but trail his hands underneath his body, to feel the bumps of his spine as he grunts and groans about how good it feels. Harry slides fully to the floor on his knees, to remove his belt and black pants quickly. And once he has Zayn in nothing but a tight pair of red Calvin Klein briefs, he kisses at the wet spot already in the fabric and inhales again.

Zayn keeps his hands on Harry’s shoulders as he presses his entire face into his crotch. He nuzzles his nose against the tip of Zayn’s dick, feels the heat of it, his fingers skimming along the top of his briefs. Zayn doesn’t have much hair on his chest or above his groin, which Harry is surprised by. He’s used to… more hair.

“I shaved,” Zayn says on a sharp exhale, Harry’s teeth nipping at his hipbone covered with a tattooed heart.

Harry hums as a response. Giving up all pretenses, he moves back and rips Zayn’s briefs down and off. Tosses them to the floor, adjusts Zayn’s legs as wide as they’ll go, and leans back in to lick one, clean line up from Zayn’s balls to the tip of his cock. He’s wet, cut, and just as wide as Harry likes. Long dicks are for morons who don’t know better; it’s the thick, fat ones, the ones that split you apart that matter most. Harry’s seen quite a few in his life and Zayn’s is by far one of the best.

Zayn sucks in a breath, holds it in his lungs as Harry does it again. Harry wants to give it as good as he got, without quite the same result, since he wants Zayn to come from fucking him. He doesn’t play it up as much as Zayn did, instead using his elevated position to his advantage. He hovers over Zayn’s lap and wraps both hands around his dick, sucks messily on just the head so that he can give himself some glide. The sound is indecent, this _slurp_ and _suction_ that drives Zayn wild as he tries to fuck up into Harry’s mouth. Harry holds him still with strong forearms on his thighs and finally gets a good amount of spit down his fingers. He uses gravity, the need to press his mouth down, to suck in. When he’s sure Zayn can handle it, he’s able to twist his hands in opposite directions, and suck the head harder.

 _“Fuck,”_ Zayn moans like a teenager, “that feels so – fucking – fuck, that’s good.”

Harry stills his hands and flicks his tongue at Zayn’s slit as he babbles again and again. It’s an intense sensation, two hands moving independently, and Harry lets him catch his breath.

Zayn pulls at the hair flopping over his eyes, which Harry takes to mean that he’s doing just fine, thank you.

Harry rolls his eyes playfully and starts up the motion again. Zayn cries out and his back arches again, he hisses _fuck_ and _shit_ and _Jesus_ like his own little mantra. Harry sucks the head, presses his tongue on the underside of it, as he squeezes just a fraction tighter. And that’s when he’s treated to the first dribble of pre come. Not a drop, not even a few drops. It’s more than that. Zayn has both hands pulling at Harry’s hair above his ears like he wants to take locks of it home, Harry sees stars, and he knows Zayn is as close as he could possibly get without coming.

Honestly, at this point in his life, Harry’s blow-job-hand-job combo should be patented.

Right as Zayn tenses, his feet curling around Harry’s midsection there on the floor, Harry collects the final drop of pre come on his tongue. He removes his mouth with a pop. Zayn doesn’t register it until Harry takes his hands away as well and crawls up onto the bed to stare down at him. Zayn’s entire face is covered in a sheen of sweat, he huffs stale breath across Harry’s cheeks, and he looks like he’s just gotten lost at the zoo and can’t find his way home to his mother.

Supported by his hands, Harry grins wickedly. His mouth must be as red as a bleeding fucking heart, since Zayn won’t look anywhere else. Red, wet lips, his tongue hiding something.

Harry opens his mouth slightly and presses his tongue to Zayn’s bottom lip, to let him in. Zayn groans, his arms around Harry’s chest, as he’s fed his pre come and tastes himself. Bitter and sweet, just how Harry likes it.

“How was that?” Harry mumbles, their lips tangled, still tasting.

“You already fucking know,” Zayn retorts, his arms tight.

Harry slides his knees out so that his weight is fully on top of Zayn. He pistons his hips forward, their cocks sliding together, and the next sound Zayn makes is the dirtiest thing Harry’s heard in his entire fucking life.

“Thought you wanted to fuck me,” he says, pulling at Zayn’s hair so he’ll open his eyes.

“I do.”

“Seems like you’re about to come all over my stomach before we even start,” Harry tuts.

“Like how you just came down my throat?” Zayn growls, his right hand suddenly at Harry’s nipple twisting it viciously. “Took about five seconds, babe. Like you were sixteen or something.”

Harry hisses when Zayn twists the other nipple, his eyes on fire.

“How about you stop talking about it and fucking _do it_ then,” Harry growls back louder.

With a look in his eye, he snatches Zayn’s hand from his nipple and moves it between his legs. Presses Zayn’s fingers right at his entrance as a tease for them both, until his face convulses for Zayn to see.

As if Zayn doesn’t need to be told twice, he flips them over.

 

**5.**

 

Zayn doesn’t smoke anymore, sadly. Otherwise he’d be holding a cigarette, as he leaned back against the headboard and watched Harry up on his knees, fucking himself with slick fingers.

Once Sav was born, he couldn’t stand to have smoke in the house or stuck to his clothing. He missed it sometimes, like now when his fingers itch and the ice in his drink starts to melt, his orgasm held at bay. He rather thinks now would be the time to break his years-long pledge to be done with the bad habit, his eyes unblinking as Harry the hot stranger from the bar bounces on his own goddamn hand like he’s getting paid for it. He could call the front desk and have a lighter and a fresh pack brought in on a silver platter. He could even make it so that the bellhop could peek into the room and see how filthy Harry Styles is when he’s fucking himself.

But then he remembers Sav. And Harlow and Archie. His three babies and how they need him to be alive until he’s at least ninety.

Zayn pinches at his thigh to shut his brain off, to not let the kids into his head space. He can’t. He’s not _supposed_ to, that’s what Dr. Seaver said. This is tonight, this is now, his release. _You must block out anything that doesn’t serve a purpose when you’re facing the moment at hand, Zayn. Live in the present._

So he envisions Dr. Seaver’s stern gaze on him, and resolutely forgets his fucking cigarettes and how nice it would feel to suck a bit of poison into his lungs. He focuses on Harry’s glistening body and demands his brain to be present. Appreciate this man, this thing they’re doing, despite themselves.

Harry sweats everywhere, all over, his hair stuck to his temples. Zayn told him in so few words that if he wanted to get fucked, he better open himself up good and well. Harry tried to challenge it, told Zayn to do it himself, finger him until he was writhing on the mattress below him.

But Zayn gave him an unwavering look. And now here they are.

Zayn made sure to have the lube readily available next to his left knee, in case Harry needed more. He kicked back like he didn’t have a care in the world, his drink fresh and strong, and observed.

Harry tends to frown, Zayn thinks. Even when he’s laughing or smiling somewhat, when Zayn says something lighthearted or a little firmer, it’s like it doesn’t matter. Harry always frowns. His eyebrows turn down, he pouts, he pinches his bottom lip like he’s going over his grocery list in his head.

It’s the same when he fingers himself. He’s up on his knees towards the end of the bed, facing Zayn. With dripping fingers, he reached a hand behind his back and touched himself the way he knew would be quickest. Zayn cocked his head and felt a surge of affection, when Harry quickly and efficiently worked up from one finger to two, while also pinching on his nipples. Harry made this sound, he convulsed slightly, and had to lean his left hand down on the bed to steady himself.

“Up, up, up,” Zayn tutted with a smirk.

Harry now keeps himself upright and angled just so, so that his shoulders and biceps bulge out, like a fucking show off. And that right there is why Zayn doesn’t feel bad for pushing Harry to the edge like this, to perform and give Zayn a little show. Because Harry gets off on it, on knowing there is a pair of steadfast eyes on him at all times.

Zayn doesn’t touch his cock, doesn’t try to stroke himself through the rough thrusts of his fingers. And it’s a good thing too, because if Zayn can hold off on touching himself, then Harry can too.

“Fuck,” Harry stutters as his legs begin shake. “Zayn, I…”

Zayn sips at his drink and then takes the orange rind into his mouth to suck on it. He wants Harry to finish his thought without any prompting. Whatever this little dance they’ve been doing since the bar, since they met, Zayn enjoys how it’s developed. How they’ve both let it simmer, then boil, then simmer again.

Harry twists his hand, his head falls back to expose his neck, and he must be rubbing at his prostate. He starts to leak, full on leak, dribbling on the bed. Zayn’s eyes darken, he stops sucking on his orange, and watches Harry’s cock twitch. It’s red, he’s flushed again, the butterfly on his stomach seems to vibrate like it’s dying. Harry can’t keep still.

Zayn wants to give Harry everything.

“How is it?” he eventually asks, after letting Harry torture himself long enough, his own cock twitching against his thigh.

“Good.”

“You ready for me yet?”

“Almost,” Harry grunts, adding a third finger. In a daze, he brings his left hand to his cock and starts to twist his thumb and forefinger over the head of it.

Zayn should tell him to stop, but he can’t.

“I bet you’re tight,” Zayn says instead, dropping his empty tumbler glass to the side table. “Bet you’re so tight. You needed this, didn’t you.”

Harry nods, his eyes still closed, face tilted towards the vaulted ceiling. He’s not just fingering his rim open anymore, not stretching or adjusting. Now he’s truly fucking himself with his fingers. A rhythmic pumping of his hand deep into his ass, the other hand falling to the bed again to hold himself up. His back arches and Zayn wants nothing more than to crawl over to him and shove Harry’s hand in as far as it’ll go. One of them is bound to break tonight, to snap from how good it is, and Zayn thinks he’d enjoy seeing Harry that way. Harry’s earned it, he deserves to feel good, to feel alive. Zayn would gladly take a backseat to Harry’s pleasure, if he had to.

That probably says something about him. It’s probably one of those thoughts he shouldn’t voice out loud to this stranger wearing the wedding ring.

“Baby,” Harry mumbles, his face screwed up as he lifts his head from where it fell to the bed. “I’m good, let’s go, I’m so good. Fuck.”

Zayn’s heart about bursts when he hears “baby,” but he ignores it. He slaps a hand to his chest, to get a grip and get a move on, and gestures for Harry to join him where he’s perched. With relief etched in the lines of his gorgeous face, Harry removes his fingers and settles both palms on the mattress. He takes a few deep breaths.

Languidly, Harry eventually crawls up to Zayn and sits on his thighs. He rests his forehead against Zayn’s cheek tenderly, their exhales mixing together as one. Bourbon and citrus. Zayn shouldn’t let Harry be this close, shouldn’t let him press a palm over his beating heart. This isn’t about that. But Zayn finds himself gripping Harry’s hips and angling his cock up so that it slides next to Harry’s. Harry gasps and presses down, kisses Zayn’s closed eyelids, and scratches at the base of Zayn’s neck to feel his ink black hair.

“Don’t you wanna feel?” Harry asks in between kisses to Zayn’s neck.

Of fucking course he does. Zayn reaches down between their bodies, his fingers search for Harry’s hole, to feel it fluttering. It’s scorching, hot to the touch, probably pink and contracting. Zayn groans at it, the pads of his fingers slipping inside Harry like he should be doing it every day for the rest of his goddamn life.

“I’m gonna make a mess of you,” Zayn admits breathlessly.

“Do it.”

Zayn feels a surge of adrenaline coursing through him. He feels like he’s about to spontaneously combust. He needs to fuck the ever loving shit out of Harry Styles and he needs to do it now.

He removes his fingers from Harry’s entrance, so that he can jostle them into position. He wants to do as he said originally: make it so that Harry watches himself as he gets fucked. They need to move so that Harry rides him, facing the massive wall of windows that no one can see through this high up, for Harry to put on a show. But suddenly Harry’s hands stop him, keeping his shoulders pressed against the headboard. Harry smiles at him, a strange grin that says he’s up to something, and Zayn doesn’t know what to do with it.

“Condom?” Harry asks like it’s an inside joke.

Zayn blinks.

Harry's smile fades a bit, like maybe now isn't the time to joke. They sit for a few moments until finally Zayn clears his throat and runs a hand down Harry's chest.

“No, I’m clean. I’m married, remember? Monogamous?”

“Well yeah, so... am I,” Harry says with a slight frown. “Just thought I’d offer, is all.”

Zayn places a kiss at the base of Harry's throat, to give himself a moment to appreciate this before they really start. But when he feels Harry's hands in his hair and a kiss pressed to his own forehead, that's too much. It's too sweet, too much talking. They've lost the plot.

Zayn leans back and clenches his jaw.

“No,” Zayn shakes his head, voice strong once more, as he shifts Harry off his lap. He has a part to play, damnit. And honestly, he hasn't had to wear a condom in years and he's not about to start now. He moves to get into position, askew on the bed, feet at the edge closest to the windows.

Harry smiles sweetly next to him on the bed, his face still red and flushed.

“I don’t want a condom," Zayn says with a smile in return. “I want to fuck you and then jizz all over you, somewhere, anywhere, and not worry about one.”

“Deal.”

Harry waggles his eyebrows and gives Zayn a quick kiss on the mouth before heaving himself up over Zayn’s thighs to Reverse Cowgirl it. Zayn can’t fucking stand it, the sight of Harry’s vast muscular back. He’s strong, yet thin. There’s clearly power stored in the muscles of his back and shoulders, and something in Zayn tells him it’s from carrying a couple of kids who always wanted their dad’s attention.

That thought, more than any thought since he saw Harry leaning against the bar, has him reeling the most. Abruptly, it overtakes him that if he doesn’t fuck Harry right then, he’ll explode. His cock is practically purple he’s so hard, so he rubs the head straight away in the crease of Harry’s ass. He pets him a bit with it, catches on Harry’s rim so that they both grunt, and then eases Harry’s body down onto his lap.

 

**6.**

 

On one hand, Harry sort of wishes he could face the other way, to sink onto Zayn’s dick and revel in the expression on Zayn’s face. When it’s the other way around, when Harry’s the one fucking up into a slick hole, it’s his favorite part. He wants to know, see for himself, how good it feels. And Harry’s almost positive that the look on Zayn’s face, the lip between his teeth and furrowed eyebrows, would send him over the edge.

But on the other hand, Harry gets to do what Zayn said earlier: he gets to stare at his own reflection mixed in with the burning city lights, and experience what Harry Styles looks like when he’s taking a dick up the ass.

It’s what his partners always see, and honestly, it’s not a terrible visual.

“Hold yourself, babe,” Zayn grunts, as Harry shifts a bit and continues his slow drop onto Zayn’s lap.

Harry can barely concentrate, he feels like his entire body is on fire, Zayn’s hands on his hips gripping tight. Every muscle group is engaged, with his asshole right in that middle ground of “if you move too quickly, or pulled me down, I’d rip at the seams.” It’s the few moments of penetrative sex between two men that completely hinge on trust. It’s when the pain hasn’t receded, a delicate balance. Zayn has to trust Harry to know his own limit, to stop him if it hurts, and Harry has to trust that Zayn will be gentle, to ease him into it.

Zayn must be able to tell that Harry needs a little help, by asking him to hold his ass in his hands, to assist the movement. Zayn also assists by popping the cap on the lube, to rub slick fingers in a wide circle where their bodies meet. It’s feather-light, but Harry’s rim is already so fucking stretched, it feels like a million pin pricks at once. It feels fucking _amazing_.

Harry stares straight ahead so he can watch as he goes full porno and reaches behind himself, to pull his ass apart, right as he grunts at the feel of Zayn’s fingers.

“There you go,” Zayn whispers between his teeth. “Fuck – yeah that’s good, babe. You’re good?”

“I’m good,” Harry nods, not breaking eye contact with his reflection.

“How’s it feel?”

“Big.”

“Too big?”

Harry shifts his knees and the movement causes a swift decline, another inch, until Zayn is halfway inside him. Zayn chuckles a bit, probably at how cocky Harry acted earlier, as he sucked Zayn into his mouth. Big tough guy, can take a big dick between his lips no problem, and yet now has to take it for real. Zayn is massive and they both know it.

“Not too big,” Harry says as he winces slightly, just to be sarcastic and difficult.

Behind him, Zayn huffs out a sharp laugh.

They give it a few more minutes, for Harry to settle himself fully onto Zayn and for Zayn to breathe deeply so he won’t move. Harry clenches around him, which causes Zayn to hiss, and Harry can’t help but smile at his reflection. It’s rather like Peter Pan: playing with his own shadow, conspiring together. If he had a few more drinks in him, Harry might even wink at himself for a job well done.

Harry leans forward and places his hands right above Zayn’s knees. He leverages himself up and down a few times, just barely, to get used to the full girth of Zayn’s cock. It doesn’t hurt, though. It’s almost like a rug burn, when the skin prickles from heat and friction combined at once.

Somehow Harry had let his head drop, his chin to his chest, with his eyes closed to really feel it out. He hasn’t been fucked like this in so long, it’s like something is sliding back into place in his chest. He doesn’t lift it again, until he feels Zayn’s left hand sliding from his ass, up his spine, to the back of neck.

“Babe, you gotta watch,” Zayn says in a low, pained voice, lifting Harry’s head up. “Don’t you wanna see what you look like?”

Harry nods to himself, his face red.

“Look at you,” Zayn whispers. “What a gorgeous boy. That’s what I saw earlier when I sucked you off. See that?”

Harry nods again, his face contorted as he bounces up and down faster, the stretch almost unbearable. He still hasn’t touched his cock and it _hurts_ , he needs it. So he holds a hand at it, presses his cock and balls up towards his abdomen to stave off his second orgasm of the night.

“You need this? You need it harder?” Zayn asks, both hands back to Harry’s hips in a vice grip.

Harry nods.

“Say it, babe.”

“I need it. I need you to fuck me harder,” Harry mumbles, his tongue too big for his mouth suddenly. He flushes at that, his words sound too needy and desperate. He gets off on performing, putting on a show, knowing his lines. And he gets off on talking dirty in elevators and smirking like a twat.

But all night, it seemed like he also kept saying the wrong things, brought up marriage, forgot his ring. He made this harder than it needed to be, and abruptly, his heart seizes up and Harry can’t believe he’s here.

He’s riding a man and staring at his own reflection to see it firsthand.

“This is good,” Zayn says, like he can read Harry’s mind. “You’re good. Everything’s fine, we’re good, babe. Go on and touch yourself now, do it.”

Harry nods frantically and clenches around Zayn so that he’ll make that lovely hissing sound again. Zayn plants his feet up onto the edge of the mattress so that he can piston his hips up as Harry bears down.

It’s too much, it’s too hot and different and not at all what Harry’s used to.

He has a flash of his life, his real life. It’s of his bed back home, his favorite wine glass on the nightstand, the room he helped decorate that’s covered in stray Cheerios, sticky building blocks, random dog toys.

He misses it.

Right as Harry moves his hand on his cock to pull himself off, his reflection shows a messy, confused, over stimulated face. It’s not what he thought he’d see. It feels off somehow.

It’s like right as he processes it, Zayn stills them both. He holds Harry by the hips and gestures for Harry to climb off of him. With a renewed sense of relief, hoping for a position that he recognizes, he slowly lifts himself up and collapses on his back. Zayn clamors off the bed to stand in front of Harry, pulls him so that his ass is right on the edge, and folds Harry’s legs over his elbows.

Harry brings his hands up to his face to wipe the sweat away, to his too-short hair that he’s not used to, and looks up at Zayn with wide, pleading eyes.

Zayn gives him a gentle smile that says _I got you,_ as he presses his huge left hand over Harry’s groin. His fingers sprawl over hair and hip and damp skin, right as he fucks up into Harry once more. It knocks the wind out of Harry, his eyes roll back, as he relishes in feeling full once more.

“I got jealous,” Zayn says with his half-smile, gesturing toward the windows. “I wanna be the one to see your face as you come.”

Harry tries to breathe. He can’t help but smile in return, at the push/pull of it all, the parts they have to play, their made-up lines.

“Jealous is a good – look on you,” Harry says, stuttering over his words as Zayn fucks into him roughly. “You – fuck – you should’ve seen your face when I winked at – the bartender.”

“He looked like he wanted – to eat you alive,” Zayn grunts.

“I think he was just being polite. And wanted a tip.”

Zayn rolls his eyes and fucks into him faster.

“You talk too much,” Zayn grunts with a smile, nodding towards Harry’s cock. “Touch yourself. Come on, babe. Want you to come first. Want – you to come now.”

Harry sets his face because he would like to come as well, since he does talk too much about stupid shit. He bites his bottom lip and starts to jerk himself off like only he himself can. Short, fast pulls, the head of his cock flushed and leaking. Zayn stares at the motion, sweat drips down his temples, as he makes this obscene whimper over and over.

He’s close, Harry can tell. He’s so close, has held off on coming since they stood side by side in an elevator, and Harry begs for it. He needs it, wants Zayn to paint him until he’s shaking from exertion.

Harry bears down, whines a little, since he really is needy and desperate. Zayn’s eyes bounce from where he slams into Harry’s hole, to Harry’s hand flying over his cock, up to his face. And it’s in that look, when their eyes lock, that Harry knows: Zayn is torn between wanting to fuck him hard and fast, and giving it up to instead rock into him gently so that they can be face to face, tender, kissing.

Harry tries to send the message with his eyes, that they’ll get there soon enough. There’s time. They have all night.

“Come on,” Harry says in a gasp. “Come on, baby. You wanna come on me? You wanna make a mess?”

Zayn grunts and nods.

“I’m gonna – babe, I’m gonna come, you did so good,” Harry mumbles nonsense, to get him there. “Fucked me – so…”

Harry’s back arches and his neck strains like he’s about to pop a blood vessel. He comes a second time that night, up over his fingers and onto his belly. He practically cries it feels so good, the pulse strong and all encompassing. He sees white behind his eyelids, as he strokes every drop out. A few slow and then a few fast, his hand out of control as he wheezes from sensitivity.

As he opens his eyes and tries to focus back on Zayn’s face, he thinks he has to say a few more choice words. Whatever Zayn needs, he’ll get him there. But before he can, Zayn shifts Harry’s calves up to his shoulders and holds him tightly around the upper thighs to pull Harry down onto his dick. He fucks into Harry with an animalistic tempo, muttering _fuck, fuck, fuck,_ until he caves in on himself.

They move as a team: Harry reaches down to grab himself by the thighs, to drop and spread them on the bed, right as Zayn holds the base of his cock to pull out slowly. Zayn jerks a hand over himself one, two, three times, and then he’s crying out with the force of his orgasm. Sweating, hyperventilating he spurts come onto Harry’s cock, into the crease of his hip, up onto his stomach to mix with Harry’s release. He runs his left hand through it, fucks into his right fist over and over, like he can’t stop, like he has to squeeze out the final few drops.

And Harry smiles at the ceiling briefly, his hands up in his hair again, at the feeling of it. It’s a beautiful thing, to be on the receiving end of something so primal, so “I can’t stop” that a man has to smear himself all over Harry’s skin. When he brings his eyes down again, he stares at his chest and stomach and fucking _loves_ how filthy he looks.

As they breathe through it, after Zayn lets his cock go and tries to find his bearings, Harry reaches for him. They lock eyes and Zayn nods, leans down and rests his forehead up on Harry’s shoulder.

Harry, still a sticky mess, runs his hands through Zayn’s hair to quiet his ragged breathing.

His mind is blank and everything is good.

 

**7.**

 

Zayn’s the one to clean them up. He eventually removes himself from Harry’s chest, their bodies making a disgusting sound as they peel apart, to go get a wet towel from the en suite bathroom. He does a quick job of it, his own body first, then Harry’s.

Harry, who still hasn’t moved since he came all over himself, gives Zayn a smirk as he pulls his ass apart once more. Zayn just shakes his head and runs the towel between his legs and under his balls. He cleans him off, rids his stomach and chest of both of their come, and tosses the towel towards the windows.

Wordlessly, they both work to get the bedspread and top sheet off and into a ball on the floor. And then they crawl under the one thin sheet left that doesn’t have any visible wet spot. Apparently they’re pretty messy when it comes to fucking around.

Zayn tucks a hand under his pillow, vaguely thinks about cigarettes again, as Harry does the same to his left. On their backs, they stare at the ceiling, the lights from down on the street creating odd shapes on the walls.

It’s a new sensation for both of them, Zayn knows, to be so wild and carefree in a place like this. To do this, to be these kinds of people. Technically they have all night, they could go for rounds two and three, if they felt so inclined. It’s a nice room, a nice view, and they’re both in rather good company. They’re compatible; they can be playful and domineering at the same time. It’s easy. No strings, no commitments. Zayn could smile and crawl down under the sheet to mouth at Harry’s cock until he’s ready to go again. He could call room service.

For tonight, this is all they have to be. Two rich, grown men looking for a little fun, a little something extra, away from home.

It’s supposed to be _fun_.

But Harry, still thinking too loudly, crowds up against Zayn, holds him around the middle for dear life, curls his long foot around Zayn’s calf. He jostles Zayn so that he’ll put his arm around him and pull him closer, which Zayn does. Harry presses his face into the delicate skin between Zayn’s armpit and chest, like he’s been waiting to do it all night. He inhales, his eyes shut tight, and Zayn feels the tickle of his eyelashes. His damp eyelashes.

And that’s when Zayn knows, when he knows for certain, that the night is over. That whatever they started at the bar, whatever they decided to do, it’s done. They have to be real people again.

Zayn grabs for the top of Harry’s too-short hair, pulls his face up so that they can look each other in the eye.

Harry isn’t crying, but he’s close. He shifts so that they’re laying on their sides, faces a few inches apart. And Zayn knows it’s about to happen before Harry even does: Harry brings his left hand up to touch Zayn’s cheek, his silver wedding ring warm and smooth against dark stubble. He runs his thumb along Zayn’s cheekbone and tries to smile. They’re not playing anymore. They don’t have any lines memorized.

“I missed you,” Harry admits quietly into the little bit of space between them.

Zayn touches Harry’s cheek, so they can match. If Harry wants to be honest, then Zayn wants that too.

“I’ve missed you so much, babe,” he says a response, his heart breaking down the fucking center like he’d hit it with a hammer.

And then Zayn’s phone starts to violently vibrate over his shoulder.

Both of their faces fall, their expressions tight, at what that must mean. Zayn launches himself away from Harry, to scramble at the items on the nightstand. He goes for his iPhone with trembling fingers. It’s late, it’s way too late for it to be ringing.

“Mom? What’s wrong?” Zayn says in a rush as he sits up fully, the sheet pooled around his waist.

But it’s not his mother.

“Baba,” Savan whines from across town, “when are you coming to get us?”

Zayn exhales a sharp breath, the one he always lets out when he’s scared about his children being in danger, hurt, or sick. His adrenaline crashes, settles, once he knows his son is okay. Beside him, Harry sniffles and presses a foot to his thigh.

“Sav,” Zayn sighs as he rubs at his eyes, suddenly exhausted. “What’s wrong bub, why aren’t you in bed? Where’s grandma?”

“She’s here,” he whines.

Zayn has a good idea where he learned that, grumbling when he’s upset or needy. He tends to whine when he doesn’t get his way, or is too tired and over stimulated. Often times, they can pick him up and kiss him, soothe him a bit, before he cries outright. And with a punch to the gut, Zayn is reminded that he should be with his children tonight and not in a hotel.

Trisha yells out to him, probably in her massive kitchen surrounded by appliances his dad can barely turn on. She tuts at Sav for wanting to call so late, going on about it being way past bedtime, but that they decided to make a snack to see if it could help them sleep.

 _Them_ , which means…

“Harlow wouldn’t stop being mean,” Sav whines again, probably sitting on the kitchen counter in his Spider-Man pajamas, rubbing at his watering seven-year-old eyes.

Right as their dog Mazzer barks wildly, Harlow screeches from somewhere in the room that she was _not_ being mean; she just had a game earlier and Sav didn’t follow the rules she gave him. At five years old, she thinks she’s decades older than Sav and constantly bullies him into too many schemes to count. Zayn can hear her tap shoes, those awful things they never should’ve gotten her, and immediately feels bad for letting her take them to his parents’ house for the night.

Next to him, Harry sits up so that he can perch his chin on Zayn’s shoulder. He sniffles again, as he listens at the phone. He hears firsthand the craziness of the Malik household, of children squabbling in the kitchen about snacks and past arguments, and it’s one in the fucking morning.

Zayn lets them all continue, knows they won’t settle down just because he asks them to. They need to wear themselves out when it gets to be this late. But when he hears Archie start to cry, it becomes too much.

“Bub, _why_ are you all awake? Why isn’t Archie in bed?”

“Archie won’t stop crying, baba,” Sav pouts.

It causes Zayn to feel another punch to the gut, the sound of his youngest fussing when he isn’t there. Archie hasn’t ever stayed the night away from home, he’s only fourteen months old, he needs his parents. Zayn closes his eyes and leans his head against Harry’s. Trisha grabs the phone for a few seconds, says not to worry and she’s already warming a bottle. She also reminds Zayn that he does _not_ need to tell her to make sure Archie has his bear and knitted baby blanket from the hospital, because he’s been clutching them since dinner.

When she gives the phone back to Sav, he continues his blubbering. He doesn’t want to stay there, he wants Zayn, he wants his room. Harlow tells him to “be a big boy,” which he hates about as much as anything. He cries harder. Zayn is the one who gets him into bed when he’s like this. Zayn always knows what to do, what to say, to make sure all three kids are tucked in.

“Babe, you need to go to sleep,” Zayn placates him, his left hand suddenly enveloped by Harry’s. “It’s just until morning, remember?”

“Yeah,” Sav pouts, his little voice so pathetic, Zayn has to hold Harry’s hand up to his chest.

“Do you want to have your snack and then go lay down and look at your books?”

“Yeah,” he sniffs.

“I’m sure Harls isn’t being too bad, and grandma’s holding Archie now, right? He’s having his snack and he’ll go to sleep soon. So it’ll be nice and quiet and you can rest your eyes.”

“Okay baba, but… I miss you,” Sav says quietly, so that his sister won’t hear. “I miss daddy. I wish I could go home and sleep in _my_ bed, that’s all.”

Zayn squeezes Harry’s hand where it sits against his chest. His eyes clamp shut, too emotionally drained after the last few weeks. The kids miss their dad, he knows it. But whenever one of them says it outright, Zayn can barely keep it together.

They need their dad.

On cue, Harry winds his right arm around Zayn’s waist. He holds tight, kisses Zayn’s bare shoulder, and turns his face so they can stare at each other again. Just as Zayn is about to cry, Harry tries to smile.

And holds out his hand.

Zayn nods and sniffs, finally able to share in the weight of it. He kisses Harry square on the mouth and says, “Daddy’s right here, baby. How about you say goodnight?”

Their night of fun is over, they’re no longer strangers who met in a bar. They’re Zayn and Harry again, partners, husbands, fathers to three gorgeous children who haven’t seen their dad in weeks. Their months of fighting and arguing, of pushing each other away, of marriage counseling and pretending that their problems weren’t that bad, finally ended in a short separation. And now they’re here, in a bed too far from their kids.

Dr. Seaver told Zayn that some couples benefit from nights like this. After spending time apart, some couples find it restorative: pretend to be other people, remove yourselves from the situation at hand, and see how it feels. Role play. Have some fun, before children and careers came around. Meet in a bar and leave the fighting at home. Only bring with them their attraction, senses of humor, and the firm baseline understanding of, “I want you, I want to touch you, I want to make you feel good.”

The bedrock of any relationship is attraction. It’s kissing, appreciating each other’s bodies, giving into it fully and without distraction.

Harry exhales. Sav makes an excited screech, which then has Archie wailing again and his mom complaining. Harlow taps her feet even louder. Zayn turns his head so he can give Harry a half-smile, and then hands him the phone so he can talk to his son.

“Hey bub,” Harry says with a pained smile, the fake one they both wear when they need their children to cooperate.

“Daddy! When are you coming home?”

Harry makes sure to look Zayn dead in the eye, as he says it, to make sure it’s an accurate statement. To make sure Zayn says it’s okay.

Maybe the night worked, maybe Dr. Seaver was right, because Zayn nods along. He needs Harry to come home. They need each other again.

“We’ll be there first thing in the morning,” Harry sighs with relief.

“Really?!”

“My… work trip is done,” Harry lies, “So I’m coming home with baba. And then we’ll play all day in your tent. How’s that sound?”

“My tent! Daddy, I put pillows in it, and Harls brought in her blanket, and baba said I can leave it in my room all the time and don’t have to take it down!”

Sav gets winded easily, when he runs around and around, too excitable for his own good. Harry giggles with him, his fist clenched in longing, right as Harlow shoves her face up to Sav’s so they can share. It leads to an argument of who gets to hold the phone, before Trisha breaks it up.

“Sharing” is still a foreign concept for their two eldest. They're working on it.

“Daddy, are you and baba coming now?” Harlow questions, her voice like a little pipsqueak.

“No, babe. Tomorrow morning,” Harry repeats, finally laying his head back on the pillows. He relaxes and stretches his legs, like he’s been waiting for this all along. Zayn follows and mirrors Harry from before, lays his head down on Harry’s chest and inhales.

The kids pepper Harry with more questions; they tell him about their day with grandma and grandpa. Zayn runs a finger up and down Harry’s stomach, from his bellybutton to his sternum, and he’s missed this. Harry had been away for over two weeks, staying with his sister two hours away. And even though Harry talked to them every day while he was gone, it’s not the same. They’re different when they know their dad is coming home again, they get excited to see him, instead of just filling him in on the day’s events.

Zayn also missed _this_ : being together and having it be pleasant, comforting, all encompassing and passionate. No fighting or silence or stilted words, when it all gets to be too much. He missed _them_. Like it used to be.

Zayn’s missed a lot lately. He feels his eyes begin to water when his hand skims over Harry’s rib cage, where he has the kids’ full names tattooed in Zayn’s loopy handwriting.

He feels Harry shiver slightly.

“Okay guys, you really have to go to bed,” Harry finishes, as both kids whine and cry on the other end about not being tired.

“Goodnight,” Zayn says loudly to everyone on the other end of the call. “And thank you, grandma!”

The two kids chorus his thank you to Trisha, because they’ve been taught well and they listen to their dads.

“Kiss Archie for us,” Harry says, wiping at his face. The baby doesn’t seem to be crying anymore; he’s probably fast asleep against Trisha’s chest with a bottle hanging out of his mouth. Baby Archie, their miracle baby who would never know that one of his dads sent the other away. Zayn kisses Harry’s chest. He can’t let himself feel guilty for doing what had to be done. To take a break and assess how to fix their marriage.

Sav moves with the phone and Zayn would bet that he’s snuggling up next to Harlow on the couch.

“Kiss your sister, too,” Harry tells Sav quietly, like they have a secret. “She loves you and doesn’t like it when you’re mad at her.

“Fine,” Sav sighs.

“We love you,” Zayn says towards the phone. “Be good, please.”

“Bye guys,” Harry finishes, finally hanging up the phone.

As always, the interaction leaves both of them exhausted and spent. Harry taps the phone against his lips for a few seconds, before turning in Zayn’s arms so that they’re face to face like before the kids called. He grips Zayn’s chin and gives him a chaste kiss on the mouth. It’s for a job well done, for keeping the kids happy while he’s been away. Zayn kisses him in return, his eyes closed so he won’t be a sap. It’s a kiss that says _thank you_ and _I love you_ and _I’m so glad we’re here._

There’s still so much to say, so much to figure out and work through. But for now, it’s like they both decide to hold onto the magic for a little longer. To lay side by side in an expensive hotel room, after they pretended to be strangers, to see if it could shake something back into place.

Zayn realizes he hasn’t kissed Harry this much in almost a year.

So he does it again.

And again.

 

**8.**

 

They’d been seeing Dr. Seaver for about six months. It took them far too long to realize that trying to handle their issues on their own wasn’t working. It became too hard to ignore: the quiet stares in anger, their annoyance over little things, the long hours they each began to put in at work to avoid each other. So with Zayn’s older sister’s gentle nudging, they finally made an appointment for a marriage counselor.

Seaver had an unyielding presence to him. He was tall, had dark hair peppered with silver, and large, straight teeth. He sat up straight in his armed chair, didn’t blink until Zayn or Harry did first, and spent numerous sessions just listening to them describe how they met and what their lives were like. He had zero time for couples that refused to put the work in. In his words, “if you’re unwilling to try to save what you once had, if you’re ‘too busy’ to do the homework I give you, well then you’re too far gone for me to help.”

For the first few sessions, they sat on opposite ends of Dr. Seaver’s sofa. They took turns telling their story, back and forth: they met nine years ago through work, when they both were inexplicably successful even at their young ages. Zayn was the Junior VP of marketing at the label. Harry was just a session producer at first, contracted to work under three Executive Producers on retainer. It wasn’t love at first sight, and was instead more like lust. It was quick. Passionate. The passion led to love. Unwavering, sickening to look at love. After only three months of dating, Zayn moved into Harry’s loft. They quickly became “Zayn and Harry” to everyone who knew them. Inseparable, connected, united on every front. They were so driven, so sure of what they wanted out of life, tied together. They got married a year in, and found a surrogate a year later. Their three kids all had the same female donor, and with every embryo they attempted to fertilize, they each contributed their sperm. As they explained to their family, their kids would be their kids regardless, and why not leave it up to the universe to decide.

It was clear that biologically, Sav was Zayn’s, Harlow was Harry’s, and Archie, the baby they had to try years and years for, was also Zayn’s. They were lucky to have three beautiful, miraculous, amazing children. The family they built for themselves was what made it so special. And they were special, Zayn and Harry, because their foundation was so solid. They loved each other so fiercely, so innately, it felt like nothing could ever shake them.

Seaver listened, took in the details of their little story. He saw for himself that the two of them knew they belonged together, no matter what. Zayn even remembers the first time Harry called them “soul mates” in front of Seaver. It was the first time Seaver made a note in his notepad, the click of his pen almost menacing to hear. Like maybe he hadn’t seen many couples be so honest, so heartfelt, about each other.

“Why do you say you’re soul mates?” Seaver asked, his head tilted.

Harry had never thought about it before, in terms of what it meant or how to clarify it. They just _were_.

“I think…” Harry tried to explain, adjusting his tie and crossing his legs, “that once I met Zayn, something inside me fell into place. Something I had been looking for, without even knowing it. It’s fucking cheesy, I know it, but… Zayn completes me. He’s my other half. I don’t function without him.”

“Umbrella,” Zayn muttered under his breath, head tilted down with a reverent smile.

Dr. Seaver didn’t understand and of course made them expound on it.

“Harry once called me his umbrella,” Zayn said with a strong, sure voice. He looked up at Seaver, too afraid to look over at Harry. “He said I guarded him, that I kept him safe. That I was his umbrella. The shield, the safeguard he needed.”

Harry totally forgot that, how when he was drunk on tequila on the night of his twenty-third birthday, they huddled under an umbrella to catch a cab. He had grabbed Zayn by the back of the neck, moved him so that Zayn would kiss him roughly on a street corner, and said it. “This is you,” he finished with a slurred voice, pointing to the pink umbrella over their heads. “You’re made for me and you make me feel safe. You’re mine and you keep me dry.”

Zayn scoffed at Harry’s sentimental musings, something he _still_ does every year on his birthday. But then he made a joke about getting Harry all wet later that night, and it’s still probably one of the funniest things Harry has ever heard.

That was the first session where they ended up sitting closer than before. They even held hands by the end of it.

But for the most part, their problems still held on tight. As they’ve gotten older, with lines around their eyes and sore knees, things changed. They both were promoted, both made more money, garnered more connections. Neither of them wanted to give up their careers, so they split everything 50/50. If Zayn had to work, Harry had to stay home, and vice versa.

Except when Harry got stressed out, he made himself scarce. Zayn would sit with the kids at the dinner table, absolutely seething at the fact that Harry stayed in the studio until midnight some nights. It would inevitably lead to fighting, hushed arguments after the kids went to sleep, about how unfair it was. Harry would yell about not wanting to yell anymore, and Zayn would plant himself on the couch with dead set eyes and refuse to yell back. Zayn also had the tendency to do the exact same thing, once Harry had spent a few days cooped up with musicians. Zayn would text Harry and basically tell him to make sure the kids were picked up, since he would be “in meetings” for seven hours straight. Harry would then try to call, Zayn would ignore it, and the petty back and forth texts never really stopped after that.

When it was written down, when Seaver said it all back to them after a few weeks of sessions, it sounded ridiculous. He admitted to them that they had some issues to work through and that they both needed to accept the blame. But they were also two people still very much faithful to each other, willing to communicate with a little help, and absolutely obsessed with their kids.

And _they_ can’t get along? How did that make sense?

Zayn finally cried in that session, his face in his hands, at how stupid he felt. He knew people getting divorced, friends and their exes, who _hated_ each other. They were cheaters, liars, awful to their spouses. They had children and houses, entire lives intertwined, and still loathed the person sleeping next to them. Those were real problems. Those were the people who needed to get divorced.

“I don’t hate you, Harry,” Zayn said into his hands. “Don’t you see how fucked up this is? We still love each other, I know we do, and yet we fight all the time about bullshit. We bring our work home or I complain about the house being a mess, you tell me to get a grip. _Those_ are our fights and we’ve let them fuck us over? _Those_ are the reasons we ended up here?”

Harry cried then too. He finally put his arm around Zayn so he could hug him. They stayed like that, their thighs touching, Zayn leaned on Harry’s shoulder, as Dr. Seaver told them how good it was. They had made real progress, by being honest about their disagreements and the ways they kept each other from feeling what they needed to feel. He said they were lucky. They were going to make it.

He told Harry to work on being more honest and forthcoming, to listen to Zayn when he was upset over his actions.

He told Zayn to stop obsessing over past disagreements and mistakes, to live in the present.

For a few weeks after that session, it seemed better. They were respectful. Harry made more time to listen, to explain his feelings and not get so riled. Zayn didn’t let the insignificant minutia of the day get him so defeated. They even started to have sex again.

But then the last few weeks it all went to shit. It went back to how it felt when Archie was just born, when he arrived a few weeks early and turned their entire lives upside down. Caring for a preemie, while also trying to wrangle their two other children, became too much. They didn’t sleep, neither of them could get Archie to stop crying, he wasn’t gaining enough weight. Their doctor said Archie had an immune disorder, that he’d always need medicine, that they had to be strong for him.

At a time when they should’ve been closer than ever, they had never been further apart. It was endless arguing, followed by endless silences. The older kids never noticed, they made sure of it, but some nights Zayn pretended to fall asleep on the couch with Archie on his bare chest, so he wouldn’t have to see Harry. And Harry knew it too, he knew it every single time, and yet didn’t go pull Zayn to bed. Harry stopped trying to hold Zayn’s hand or kiss him like he used to, when they were young and untroubled living in their first fancy loft.

And then almost three weeks ago, it happened. In the laundry room so the kids wouldn’t hear, they fought over what they always fought over: Zayn being too stubborn, Harry being too distracted, money, and how best to keep their family whole. Harry called Zayn a prick, Zayn pointed at Harry’s face and called him a fucking asshole. And then, when it felt like they both were about to say more shit they couldn’t take back, it was finally said.

The words they both dreaded for so long.

“You need to fucking leave,” Zayn hissed with tears in his eyes, as he grabbed for one of Archie’s shirts to fold in his shaking hands. “You need to go, I can’t have you here.”

“Are you serious?” Harry hissed back. “So just because I’m the one who gets too angry, too ‘crazy’ when we argue, I have to leave my own fucking house?”

Zayn had to bite his lip so it wouldn’t shake.

“Harry, please go.”

The dam broke, both of them realizing what Zayn had asked and what Harry couldn’t accept. It was a separation. A real separation, the thing they swore to Dr. Seaver would never happen to them, where one of them had to take a step back from their home.

Harry ripped Archie’s shirt from Zayn’s hands and held it tight between his fingers, at a complete loss.

“I don’t want this, Zayn,” Harry said, his eyes starting to well up then too. “I don’t want to be away from them, I can’t.”

“But you want to be away from me, deep down. You need a break from me.”

“I did _not_ say that.”

“You didn’t have to,” Zayn said timidly as his arms dropped to his sides. “This isn’t working. Not… right now, not for a long time. So I think… I think you should go stay with Gemma, and I’ll tell the kids you’re working.”

Harry blinked and let it sink in. He pressed Archie’s shirt to his mouth, his eyes bouncing around their messy laundry room full of grass-stained shorts, ballet slippers, and shredded up dog toys. And when he looked up at Zayn to see his face unreadable, too blank and seconds away from crumbling, he stepped forward. He tried to calm them both down, he pulled Zayn against his chest and sobbed into his shoulder that he didn’t want them to separate. He didn’t want to fight with the person he loved. Zayn held him, he ran his fingers through Harry’s long, tangled hair and tried to shush him like he did Sav when he was upset.

“Let’s give it a few weeks,” Zayn finished quietly, the one to always end their disagreements. “Just until we… we’ll cool off and get some space. Seaver always says to get perspective, yeah? And I’m sure… you have the time off anyways and Gem will take care of you. We’ll – I’ll call you in a few weeks.”

The next day, Harry packed a bag. He kissed Sav, picked Harls up and whispered he loved her, and then clutched Archie to his chest for ten straight minutes as he wandered the main floor of the house. And then he was gone, without a word to Zayn.

They stood in the front door as he left. Zayn held Archie, kissed at the black curls on his head, and gripped Harlow’s hand, as Harry’s car disappeared at the end of the block. Sav waved and tugged Mazzer’s leash so he wouldn’t chase Harry’s car, none of them any the wiser. It was just dad going away on a business trip. Everything was fine, they were safe, happy, and loved. Their parents were soul mates and they certainly weren’t divorced.

Not yet.

It was Zayn who ended up emailing Dr. Seaver two weeks later, for advice on what to do. He had had enough of this “break.” In an angry rant while at his desk, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows and a strict Do Not Enter to his assistant, he banged on his work keyboard. He asked for a solution, a _real_ solution, not just advice on how to listen and communicate. He wanted an action, something to _do_ , something that would fix them. Zayn Malik did not let things go, he held on tight, and he refused to let his marriage go down like this. He didn’t want to hate his fucking husband. He had three babies to think about and this was _not_ going to be his life. He loved Harry and Harry loved him, and if they couldn’t make it fucking work, than _no one_ could. No one _deserved_ to.

It was then that Seaver gave him the plan. He said the best piece of advice he could give them was to step back. “Step away from your lives, even just for one night. Try being other people, put yourself into someone else’s shoes. Your attraction, the things that you love about Harry will still be there. The things that brought you together all those years ago in the first place may just be the solution to your problems. And don’t forget you’re still quite young. Try to have some fun together. That’s important.”

So that was the plan. Zayn finally called Harry and told him what they had to do. Harry, so starved to hear Zayn’s voice, listened intently and swore he never wanted the break to begin with. Zayn didn’t agree with that, but barreled on with where to meet, and how they were going to play it. Harry agreed because he usually always agreed with Zayn, when he was especially miffed or upset.

The Downtown, Saturday night, at ten on the dot.

No fighting, no discussing their problems, no wedding rings.

Strangers. Brand new to each other, pretending like it’s the first time.

“And it would’ve gone exactly according to plan,” Zayn now says to Harry in bed, as they split enough room service for about four people, “had you remembered to take off your fucking ring!”

Harry squawks a laugh and spits pieces of cheeseburger onto the sheets. Zayn thumps him twice on the back so that he doesn’t choke.

“Fuck, I’m such an idiot,” Harry laughs around the food in his mouth. “I swear I didn’t mean to. I stopped at the house on the way, to make sure I had my good suit and shoes. And I was going to leave it next to yours in the bathroom. Totally forgot.”

Zayn nods as he takes a sip of chocolate milkshake, because he should’ve known. Harry, always distracted, listening to voice notes on his phone from various producers, checking his emails, probably didn’t give it a second thought. Something tugs at Zayn’s stomach, even as he stuffs it with more food, that it’s one of the things that drives him crazy about Harry lately.

“But you didn’t have to call me on it,” Harry muses, elbowing Zayn in the ribs.

“Hey babe, if you were gonna show off that you were married in front of a dashing stranger, I couldn’t help it,” Zayn smiles. And then, “I didn’t want you to feel bad, so I don’t know… I thought, maybe we both could be married then.”

“You made it out like we were cheating,” Harry counters.

“True…”

“We weren’t supposed to pretend to cheat, or hurt our spouses. We were supposed to be single. New, different people. I was about to call myself John!”

Zayn snorts at the thought of Harry being named anything other than Harry. As if that face could belong to a “John,” _honestly_.

They eat in silence for a few minutes, swapping plates and offering bites. It’s a dance only a couple of almost ten years can perfect. Harry knows all of Zayn’s favorites and vice versa.

“I meant to tell you,” Harry says as he picks at the curly fries, “that I fucking _love_ this new cologne.”

Zayn smirks because he knew Harry would.

“I figure I’ve been wearing the same Gucci forever. I thought maybe I’d try it out, see if you liked it.”

“Babe,” Harry gapes at him. “It’s amazing. It’s so _new_ , so… intense. I almost came right there at the bar, just smelling it. You made me crazy. _And_ a new all-black Armani suit? Smirking at me? _Then_ you give me the old ‘high C’ blowjob? Babe. That was classic Zayn Malik if I’ve ever seen it.”

Zayn snorts again, remembering the time Harry really did come in his pants at an industry party, when Zayn decided to be a tease (in a new Gucci suit) and rubbed his ass against his groin as people danced around them.

“Well you’re one to talk about ‘new,’” Zayn says as they start to clear the food away and move dishes and trays to the floor. “I can’t believe you _cut your hair.”_

Harry tugs on the short strands along his temple, almost like he forgot he had done it. Zayn shifts so that he’s also propped up against the headboard, the two of them still naked, fit to burst. It’s ridiculously late and they’ll probably both kick themselves for it in the morning, when they’re due to pick up the kids bright and early. Zayn’s parents can only handle three kids and a dog for so long, before they fall over from exhaustion. Zayn knows the feeling.

“Do you not like it?” Harry mumbles, looking to Zayn to see if he’s lying.

“I like it.”

“You seemed so surprised earlier. You called it ‘lovely,’ but… I don’t know, I know you always loved my long hair.”

“Of course I loved it long, it was – that’s how I’ve always seen it, since we _met_. It’s… I mean, it’s different, but I like it.”

Harry eyes him, unconvinced.

“I mean,” Zayn shrugs, caught, “I thought you’d tell me first, before you changed something about your appearance.”

“What, like ask permission?”

“No, Harry,” Zayn says with an eye roll, suddenly on his haunches like a guard dog, ready for the impending back-and-forth. “I didn’t say that.”

Harry rolls his own eyes in response, matches Zayn like he always does, and gets up to go grab a beer from the bar. Zayn watches Harry’s naked ass bounce. He crosses his ankles under the sheet, crosses his hands in his lap, and quietly fumes. It’s such a dumb thing to start a fight over. So Harry cut his hair and Zayn was surprised by it. Is that a crime?

“You always say shit like that, you know,” Harry says from behind the bar as he uncaps two bottles. “You comment like, ‘I didn’t say that, don’t put words in my mouth,’ but it’s like… you _know_ that’s how you meant it, and you make _me_ be the one to say it out loud. And then suddenly I’m the bad guy.”

Zayn grits his teeth.

“That’s fucking bullshit.”

“Is it?” Harry tilts his head.

Like his body doesn’t even belong to him, Zayn gets up from the bed and stands at the end of it. He stares Harry down where he perches behind the bar, his arms leaned on it like they were discussing football or their taxes they still need to get done. This is a classic Harry Styles move if he’s even seen one, the way he can nonchalantly gut Zayn like a fucking fish. He can take everything that they feel, every interaction they have, and twist it into something wrong or somehow all Zayn’s fault.

Harry, who literally three minutes before told Zayn that he loved his new cologne and was so drawn into it, it drove him wild, now stands behind the hotel bar with a punishing expression on his face.

This is why Zayn asked Harry to take a break from staying at the house. He can’t handle Harry when he gets like this, when he absolutely makes _Zayn_ out to be the bad guy, not the other way around.

“Don’t start this, Harry. Don’t start another argument you can’t finish,” Zayn says angrily, his hands shaking at his sides.

“Oh I finish _every_ argument we have, babe. I participate and I fight back. You tell me all the shit I’m doing wrong, I take it, and then I throw it back in your face. Remember?”

Harry using Zayn’s words to Dr. Seaver is a low blow.

“No,” Zayn shakes his head, moving towards the bathroom. “You start this shit and then you leave. You barely speak to me during the week, then you work all weekend, only to come home on Sunday night and expect me to what, thank you? To crawl on my hands and knees to you in gratitude, thank _God_ for you and all your hard work? And when I don’t, you get to hold it over my head, act like an asshole, and then you leave again.”

Harry narrows his eyes.

“I do not leave, Zayn. I remove myself from intense conversations so that Harlow doesn’t ask why her daddy ‘doesn’t like’ her baba. Again.”

“No, you do leave. Like a coward.”

Harry slams his beer down on the bar a little too harshly and it makes a ringing sound that Zayn feels in his teeth.

“Don’t rewrite history, Zayn. _You_ kicked me out. Like a quitter.”

It’s another low blow. Harry can go ten rounds with the best of them, his trainer always said so, and their fights are no different. Zayn steps back like he’s been pushed, right as Harry’s spine straightens in surprise. Sometimes he says things and even he can’t believe it. He told Seaver once that he must store shit somewhere deep in his brain, because he doesn’t mean to sound so cruel, he swears it.

Zayn blinks. His face loses all expression, his mind goes blank. It’s his defense mechanism for whenever Harry sneers, scorns, scoffs.

And then he heads into the bathroom and doesn’t look back.

 

**9.**

 

It’s a nice view, Harry thinks again, as he stands at the windows and looks out across the city. He takes in the big, booming metropolis where they first met years ago, when Harry wore the wrong size suit jacket and Zayn still had a hooped nose ring, and pretends like they’re not as high up as they are. The city holds such a special place in his heart. It was where they fell in love. It was before their careers climbed to unprecedented heights, before the money and the new house just outside of the city limits, before the wedding and the kids and the problems they couldn’t get past.

He spent too much fucking money on this room with his second credit card, an amount he will _not_ divulge to Zayn… but he had convinced himself it would be worth it. _They_ were worth it, he leveled. When “Unchained Melody” played in the elevator, it was like a sign: they deserved to be happy, to find common ground again, to fall back in love with the people they used to be.

And yet Zayn still thinks Harry wants to be anywhere but at home and Harry wishes Zayn would admit that he’s part of the problem. They both lost sight of what they wanted. They let their marriage become clouded with shit, with the bullshit their divorced friends used to complain about. Cliché shit like the mortgage and college funds and how they never take family vacations.

The one night they swore they wouldn’t fight and here they are: Zayn in the shower, probably grinding his teeth in anger, and Harry staring out a window, naked and shaking from the chill in the room.

Something has to change. Something real has to change. They can’t expect one wild night in a hotel room, full of the intense, passionate sex they used to have, to fix their problems. They need to talk. They need to admit the things they suck at, their downfalls, their faults. And they need to apologize, to love, to build each other up. They might act miserable now, but they weren’t always that way. And they both don’t want that to be their future. They need to remember the good things, too.

They need to be honest.

They need to fall back in love with the people they are _now._

Harry hangs his head and lightly pounds his fists against the glass, his breath out of sync, his lungs needing his inhaler. He tries to calm down, he tries to focus. He's always let his anger get the best of him, holds onto it until Zayn is on the receiving end.

He can’t wait around for Zayn to shove it down, forgive Harry when he shouldn't and it's deserved. Zayn, who will eventually come back into the main room with his face swollen, pleading for them to make up like he always does. He can’t expect Zayn to kiss him, explain the ways they’ve failed, make another appointment with Seaver, or come up with another idea to fix it. He can’t follow Zayn’s lead on this one. He can’t be led around by the hand, like he always is.

Harry needs to be Zayn’s fucking umbrella for once.

So Harry does what he should’ve done six months ago. He doesn’t pull on his clothes and leave in a huff, upset over his own heated words, in denial about how hurtful he can be. He does what Dr. Seaver tried to drill into his head over and over: be present, be grateful, calm down, say you’re sorry when you’re wrong. He takes a deep breath and then steps away from the city lights. He heads to the bathroom and slips inside, the thick, wet steam sticking to the mirrors and glass surrounding the shower. It doesn’t have any doors; it’s one large walk-in with a huge waterfall shower head towards the far end.

Illuminated under a single dim light, Zayn stands beneath the stream of hot water, his hands up on the tiles, his head hanging exactly the same as Harry did while at the windows. He’s a sight to behold, one lithe line from the top of his head down to his heels. Broad shoulders, thin waist, deceivingly muscular thighs. It’s like a fucking magazine ad and Harry can’t help but watch him tilt his head back and forth to let the water run through his hair.

He’s not crying, Harry can tell. He can always tell when Zayn’s crying. But he’s exhausted, he’s upset, he’s probably thinking of all the ways he’s failed tonight. This was Zayn’s idea and he had been so excited about it. He’s always tried to shoulder everything, to fix whatever is broken, to mend and repair when Harry couldn’t. Harry holds a hand to his chest as he stares at Zayn now. Because earlier when Harry turned around in that bar and saw Zayn for the first time in weeks, beautiful and effervescent like he hasn’t acted in years, it took Harry’s breath away. In that moment, he wasn’t angry with Zayn and Zayn wasn’t angry with him. He knew Zayn was confident in the plan, he had it all mapped out in his head. “Meet again, have sex, talk, figure out how to make it work.” Harry smiled because he thought it would work, that once they had their fun and fucked it out, laughed, kissed like teenagers, they’d be fine.

And instead they had another fight. Another stupid, idiotic fight. Harry called him a quitter, he _did_ put words in Zayn’s mouth, and it wasn’t fucking fair. They both fight dirty. But Harry always gets the last word in and he always walks away first, with Zayn left to pick up the pieces. Zayn can’t do it on his own anymore. And Harry finally gets it.

Harry ventures into the shower and steps behind Zayn. He wraps his arms around Zayn’s waist and presses his face into his neck. If he tries hard enough, he can still smell the remnants of Zayn’s new cologne. The cologne he bought because he wanted to drive Harry mad.

Zayn doesn’t tense up under his embrace, which almost has Harry crying. If Zayn had tensed, pushed him away, demanded to be left alone, Harry’s not sure how he would ever recover. Zayn actually takes one of his arms and holds it against Harry’s, even as he continues to hang his head.

They finally need to have their talk.

“I love you,” Harry says into his damp skin, his voice cracking. “I love you so much. I’m right here and I’m not leaving, not this time.”

“I know,” Zayn says quietly, voice almost drowned out by the water going down the drain.

“I’m so sorry, babe.”

“Me too.”

“I’m sorry for being an asshole, for saying shit I don’t mean. And for the things I do mean, I’m sorry for not telling you how I felt sooner.”

“I’m sorry for pushing you,” Zayn says towards the tiled floor, his eyes still closed. “When we fight and I swear I hate you in those moments, I push you to the couch or to… when you leave for the studio, I tell myself you do it on your own. But I probably make you.”

“You don’t make me do anything.”

“I don’t make it easier for us, though,” Zayn reasons, shaking his head. “I get stressed and upset, and I take it out on you. I never want the kids to be sad, so I… I think I end up hurting you because I know how. We know how to push each other.”

“And when have I ever made it easy?” Harry tries to say with a smile, his teeth catching on Zayn’s shoulder. “We both know I’m a pain in the ass who can’t admit when he’s wrong.”

Harry feels Zayn shake slightly beneath his arms in a bout of silent laughter. They continue to stand under the shower stream, their bodies lined up perfectly. Harry runs his fingers up and down Zayn’s sides, up to his chest, down to the trimmed hair trailing from his bellybutton. Zayn rarely shaves his body hair these days, and as Harry rakes his fingers through it, he tilts his head back to rest on Harry’s shoulder. They haven’t had a night together in so long, they haven’t touched tenderly in even longer, and in that shower, they both let out sighs of relief.

When they told Dr. Seaver they didn’t want to break up or let their marriage end, they meant it.

And they mean it now.

“You know,” Harry says as he grips Zayn’s hips, to turn him around to face him. “I… the other night, I was in my sister’s attic, playing guitar, all weepy over a picture your mom sent me of Sav. And I don’t know why, it’s stupid, but I… felt like doing something. I felt like… I needed to _shed_ , or something. So I called Gem up and asked her to bring scissors.”

Zayn wraps his arms around Harry’s waist, their cocks suddenly in the same vicinity. Harry stares into Zayn’s eyes and sees the question there, to explain himself further.

“I just wanted to feel a bit lighter, that’s all,” Harry says. “Not so weighed down and stuck.”

Zayn nods and holds Harry tighter.

“I get it, babe. I don’t want you to feel stuck, I don’t want us to feel – like we have to pretend to be other people all the time, or who we were as kids. And I really do think it’s lovely, I promise.”

Relief washes over him, at the fact that Zayn came to the same conclusion. They’re Zayn and Harry, Present Day spouses, working as a team. They loved each other then and they still do now. They just have to keep working at it and say it out loud every once and awhile.

Harry leans in and kisses him, their mouths slick and warm from the steam. Zayn welcomes it, he holds Harry by he neck, savoring the heat. Harry thinks they’ll kiss like that for a while longer, just lazy presses of their mouths, hands in hair, toes touching. But after a few minutes, Zayn pulls away with a slight frown.

“What picture? What picture did my mom send you?”

“It was of Sav in his tent,” Harry remembers with a smile. “He had his little face peeking out, smiling, and I realized he had lost another tooth.”

Zayn frowns further.

“He made me put it under his pillow with a note,” Zayn says quietly. “He asked the Tooth Fairy for twenty dollars, since ‘one dollar doesn’t buy anything these days.’”

Harry starts to laugh as Zayn shakes his head. Harry can’t help but be ecstatic over his son being such a little shit. A “baby mogul,” they used to say, who sometimes said things like he was an eighty-year-old man. It was an adorable picture and Harry can totally hear Savan asking for more cash.

But then Harry frowns to match Zayn’s. It’s why he got so upset at Gemma’s, when he looked at the picture of his oldest son and realized that he had missed it. He was away for over half a month, which is ages long when it comes to a child’s early years. Savan lost one of his two front teeth and Harry wasn’t there to celebrate it.

Zayn grabs for Harry’s face and holds it close, their noses almost touching. It’s still not heated or sexual at all, the way they stand together, naked and spilling their guts.

Harry blinks at Zayn and waits.

“I love you,” Zayn says again, something Harry never gets tired of hearing. “I shouldn’t have asked you to go. I want you home. And I want us to be better.”

“Me too.”

“Because I miss you, our kids miss you, and I don’t function without you. That’s the reality of it, babe. And if the worst thing I can say about my husband is that he works _too_ hard, wants _too_ much for our life, and cries over missing a baby tooth, well… it could definitely be worse.”

Harry starts to cry then, because of fucking course he does. He kisses Zayn roughly, their teeth knocking together.

“And if the worst thing I can say about you is that you want me around more, you want more of my attention, and can’t stand it when we fight… then I say we’re doing alright,” Harry says as he bites his lip.

Zayn pulls Harry in, their kiss just as rushed and intense. They kiss and whisper more ridiculous sweet-nothings, like they’re newlyweds again. Or maybe the two idiots who almost set their old loft on fire when they tried to make a pizza in the oven and ended up fucking on the dining room table for over an hour. Or maybe like two idiots who let their marriage counselor suggest a night of horny fun in a ridiculously priced hotel.

Right as his fingers start to prune, Harry moves Zayn against the tiled wall of the shower and bites at his neck. Zayn moans when Harry’s hand comes down between them, to stroke Zayn into full hardness. He moans louder when Harry slides his palm down to his balls and spreads his legs. They both know what buttons to push, so as Harry explores Zayn with his hand, Zayn bites Harry’s ear and tells him how hot he looked earlier, bouncing on his dick.

They end up jerking each other off against the wall of the shower, their faces close, mouths touching as they huff air back and forth. Before they fucked as strangers, pretended it was new. But now it's back to Harry and Zayn, connecting, holding on, sharing in the familiarity together. It feels like the first time and like they've done it a million times, all at once. Zayn kisses Harry's temple and Harry nuzzles his nose into Zayn's cheek. Because even when they're crazed and seconds from letting go, they still know to be affectionate.

Zayn comes first as he bites Harry’s lower lip.

Harry comes second, weakly, his eyes screwed up like he’s in pain.

As they try to level their breathing and rinse their sticky hands under the stream of cooling water, Harry winks at Zayn and says they should send Dr. Seaver a fruit basket.

Zayn rolls his eyes, even as he laughs.

 

**10.**

 

Zayn and Harry aren’t cuddlers. At least, not for about the last four years.

Sure, way back before they had children, they used to curl up and talk shit before bed, legs intertwined, huddled together to soak up each other’s body heat. There were lazy Saturday and Sunday mornings when Zayn would curl around Harry, his mouth at Harry’s ear, whispering for him to go make them breakfast. Or Harry would rouse awake his absolute favorite way, with Zayn snaking his hand between his legs followed by long, slick fingers running circles around his hole. Some mornings Zayn would even treat Harry with his mouth.

But they don’t cuddle or wake up in each other’s arms anymore. It’s sort of impossible.

Sav has the tendency to sneak into their bed in the middle of the night, to sprawl himself in between them. Most mornings they slap at their alarms, to find Sav on his back, on top of the comforter because he runs warm, his ridiculously long arms resting on both of their chests, and Mazzer taking up all the room down by their feet.

And then Harlow learned it from her brother, that the Big Bed was the Comfy Bed, and that it meant getting hugs and kisses from her dads in the morning. So in addition to Savan kicking them in the lower backs and rib cages, they also usually had to deal with Harlow stealing the blanket, either tucked under Harry’s chin when she woke up bored and alone; or, clinging to Zayn’s front, scared for her life after a bad dream.

Their bed really isn’t conducive to cute morning cuddles anymore. When Zayn blinks his eyes open, he almost always has Harlow’s hair stuck in his mouth, and Sav’s foot pressed to his cheek. Harry is of course there next to him, all the way over on the other side of their king bed, chuckling at their needy, attention-starved children and foul-breathed German Shepherd.

Lord knows that when Archie is old enough to follow along, Sav will more than likely take him by the hand and show him how to jump up on the bed without their dads waking up. It’ll be interesting to see where they can fit him within the crowded space.

So when the sun breaks through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows of their hotel room, the room silent and calm, Zayn cracks an eye open and realizes he’s still in the hotel. He can tell he’s still with Harry, with no kids present, when there’s room to move around, no one has stolen the blankets, and he’s not practically tumbling to the floor. They had their wild night and they still have a bit of morning left.

Zayn smiles to himself. The only body part touching him is Harry’s ass. They’re literally ass to ass, both facing the edges of the bed, half on their stomachs, like their unconscious forms forewarned them of Sav’s eventual crowding. Zayn snorts and thumps his face against the pillow clutched under his arms, and wiggles his ass to see if Harry is awake and can feel it too.

But Harry was clearly still dead to the world, he didn’t laugh or bump his ass back at Zayn’s. He’s even snoring slightly, which means he’s _really_ under. Zayn turns onto his back and stretches himself out, feeling refreshed and renewed in the ridiculously large luxurious bed.

After they got out of the shower, they spent their time talking. Dr. Seaver said that once they finally had the breakthrough of Do Not Blame, it would almost be easy. And it actually was, which was surprising. Harry told Zayn about the things he had been feeling, the inadequacies and missteps that he always felt like Zayn judged him for. Zayn didn’t get defensive or try to deflect the blame elsewhere; he just listened. And when Zayn explained to Harry how he felt for so long like Harry’s third most important priority, behind the kids and his amazing job, Harry didn’t try to refute it.

They sat in two armchairs near the windows, still naked, nursing bottles of beer, and really let it all out. It was a lot of shit to put out there all at once, and some of it hurt. Zayn hated to hear about the nights Harry spent asleep on the couch in his studio, for fear of going home to Zayn and seeing their bedroom door closed to him after he had fucked up yet again. And Harry grimaced at Zayn’s story of the time Harlow caught him yelling into his phone, when he left Harry that one awful voicemail about Harry being a “shitty partner and an even shittier best friend.”

But they promised to be better. They vowed to continue with Dr. Seaver and see what else they could learn from him. Harry swore he’d never walk out after an argument and Zayn swore he’d never again ask him to. Harry would be more open with his feelings and Zayn would let the old shit go. No more hushed arguments, no more resentment. They had three children to think about, and it’s not right for their baba to be the only one staying at the house. They didn’t deserve to see their dad’s car driving down the block without a return date.

They also decided that once a month, they’d have a date night. They’d rent a room somewhere, maybe not always at The Luxor since their accountant would probably murder them, but a nice place. They’d have dinner and maybe go see pretentious plays again, Harry’s favorite. Have drinks, see their old friends, spend some real time together.

When they finally got into bed only a few hours before, they brought back their old tradition from before their problems kept them silent and far apart: they swapped a few cute stories about the kids. Zayn filled Harry in on the things he missed over the last two weeks, like how Zayn caught Harlow carrying Archie around in her doll’s dress a few days before. Or how Savan learned from his favorite uncles how to kick a soccer ball with both feet.

And then at long last, their shared their final tradition: they had a kiss goodnight, in the middle of the bed, before turning over and giving Sav room for when he inevitably came crawling in. Just like old times.

They still have a little over an hour before they need to pack up and head to his mother’s house, which is lovely. They didn’t need to wake up to an alarm after all. And even though he should go fold their suits, find comfortable clothes from Harry’s bag, and pack up their matching cufflinks, Zayn can’t be bothered to leave the warmth of the bed yet.

He stretches again and stares at the ceiling, suddenly with a stupid smile on his face, at his own dirty mind and the things it comes up with.

Slowly, he turns onto his side to face Harry. He stares at his muscular back from lifting their children, the rise and fall of his chest, the cluster of freckles not quite covered by the sheet perched over his ass. And without jostling Harry too much, he shifts Harry’s top leg to the bed, so that he’s positioned as a large 4. He gently kisses Harry’s shoulder and upper back, the parts of him that used to be covered by all that hair, up to his neck and his ear. He gives him a peck on his temple, which must tickle, since Harry wrinkles his nose in his sleep and clutches his pillow a little tighter.

Zayn runs his hand down Harry’s bicep, to his rib cage over the kids’ names, down to his hip. Fuck, Zayn loves the skin there, all soft and a little pliant, no matter how hard Harry works out. Zayn kisses his shoulder once more and finally skitters his fingers down to Harry’s thigh, up to the cleft of his ass. If he does this just right, Harry will turn over fully onto his stomach in his sleep and give Zayn some real access.

He uses a light hand, his fingers barely brushing the skin behind Harry’s balls, between his ass cheeks, back down to his thigh. From where he’s perched behind him, Zayn can’t see his cock filling up. But he knows Harry’s body probably about as well as his own, and he knows that it for sure has started to take interest.

Zayn continues exploring Harry with his fingers: thighs, ass, balls. Harry begins to breathe a little deeper, his nose making a slight whistling sound as if he was running a marathon in his dream. He shifts in his sleep, grips his pillow, even pushes his ass against back against Zayn’s pelvis like he’s seeking the pressure. A few more minutes of it and finally, thankfully, Harry repositions himself and plops down onto his stomach. He’s now facing Zayn, his face pinched and overexerted, his lips dry from his rapid exhaling. Zayn applies a bit more pressure now, his nails dragging up and down Harry’s inner thighs, his thumb dipping to Harry’s perineum.

Zayn can’t help but grin wickedly as Harry starts to hump down onto the bed, just slightly, just a little, like a horny teenager having a wet dream. His dick is probably flushed and heavy, his body reacting before his brain can wake up. He used to beg Zayn to do this back in the loft, even on their fucking honeymoon, to “please, please have your mouth on me when I wake up, babe.”

Zayn intends to do just that.

He moves quietly yet efficiently, to find the lube on the nightstand and then pull the sheet away to reveal Harry fully. He settles at the end of the bed between Harry’s spread legs, to see that Harry’s toes have started to curl, which is a very good sign indeed. Zayn licks his lips and smiles again, even though Harry can’t see it, and spreads him apart.

There are only a few minutes before Harry will wake up like he always does. So Zayn gets to work. He digs his thumbs into the soft skin of Harry’s pert little ass and lays his tongue flat against his hole. Harry used to say that Zayn’s abnormally wide tongue was made for eating his ass, which Zayn used to think was absolutely ridiculous. That is, until he’s back here in moments like this with Harry, in bed or in a hot tub or against the wall of their closet.

A breathy moan escapes Harry’s lips, he tries to fuck down onto the mattress. But Zayn holds tight, keeps his ass held up and at his face. He wants the rough stubble on his chin rubbing along Harry’s balls to be the first sensation he feels as he awakens. So Zayn keeps his tongue flat and still, uses his jaw, moves his entire face against Harry’s skin. It’s the perfect way to get Harry nice and wet, to keep him on edge, to feel the flutter of his entrance as it gives way.

Zayn knows the moment Harry wakes up fully, when he inhales sharply and his head pops up from his pillow in surprise. Zayn, face buried and just trying to make sure he has enough oxygen, tries to stop smiling and focus. He readjusts his hands, dips his thumbs down so they tug at Harry’s rim. It allows better access to circle his tongue, to push Harry up off the bed a few times as he grunts.

Harry doesn’t talk much in the morning, when he’s trying to organize his day in his head first thing. And it’s no different when they have morning sex. Zayn doesn’t get any words of encouragement or sweet musings. He just feels the jostling of Harry’s body as he tries not to flail from stimulation, and then Harry’s hand as it reaches back to pull Zayn’s head into his ass as if there was any space between them at all.

He pulls Zayn’s hair roughly as Zayn licks him up and down, his spit dripping down to Harry’s balls and then the bed. Harry’s spread legs start to tremble, his back arches, he grunts into the quiet cavernous hotel room. And it’s fucking delicious, how much he reacts to this, how his entire body gives over to Zayn’s hands and mouth.

“Babe,” Harry finally moans, his voice rough from sleep.

It’s Zayn’s cue, so he backs away with heaving lungs. He moves up onto his knees and wipes at his mouth, right as Harry turns over onto his back and bends his knees.

He has pillow creases on his cheek, his eyes are red and puffy, his hair a fucking disaster. And Zayn falls in love with him all over again in that moment, so he runs his hands up Harry’s thighs, pelvis, hips, chest. And then he’s returns to his position on the bed, between Harry’s legs.

He quickly slicks up his fingers and then sinks his mouth onto Harry. He sucks hard and fast, can’t make Harry wait for this after such a slow build up. When he goes in with two fingers straight away, Harry hisses and grabs him by the hair with both hands. Zayn watches him throw his head back, clamp his eyes shut, and lift his ass up from the bed. He thrashes from it, overwhelmed from both of his sweet spots being touched at the same time: the underside of the head of his cock and his prostate. Zayn’s tongue and fingers are almost too good, he knows, as he moves faster.

Eventually Harry seizes up entirely, his moaning and groaning cease, and he arches up to fuck Zayn’s mouth. He comes hard, Zayn’s name huffed over and over, as Zayn’s throat contracts around him.

Zayn makes sure not swallow all of it, though. Because just like Harry, Zayn very much likes to be a tease.

As Harry convulses a few times, the aftershock of orgasm making his feet curl and chest spasm, Zayn removes his fingers. And then he hurries to crawl up Harry’s body and straddle his chest.

Harry’s eyes flutter open at the sound of Zayn fucking into his own fist, the intense look on his face that makes Harry’s eyes cross with want. Harry stretches his arms above his head, and sees a drop of his come at the corner of Zayn’s mouth, another smeared on his chin.

Harry bites his lip.

“You wanna come on my face?” Harry says quietly, his hands curling around the pillow beneath his head.

Zayn gives him a look.

“I take that as a yes,” Harry grins. “Go on then, babe. Make a mess.”

Zayn moves his hand faster, his neck sore from his position earlier. He cracks it, tips his head up towards the ceiling to really concentrate. They haven’t had sex this many times in such a short amount of time, in so long; he hopes he has it in him.

Harry must read Zayn's mind because he keeps it up.

“Come on. Come. Come on me,” he whispers. “I want it, babe. Come on me, come on.”

It works, it always works, the way Harry’s pleading voice practically grabs him by the balls and squeezes. Zayn rushes to grip Harry by the hair flopping over his forehead, pulls his head up off the pillow, to open his mouth. Harry obliges, he holds his tongue out flat and wide like Zayn taught him, and then Zayn’s coming.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Zayn hisses, the weak strings of white landing on Harry’s cheek, his lip, his tongue. “Holy fuck, H. _Fuck_.”

Harry peeks open an eye, since the other eyelid is covered in spunk, and smiles with his tongue still out like he’s presenting himself for a job well done. Zayn squeezes the head of his cock for anything left, and he shivers.

“Thank you, baby,” Harry smirks, licking his lips, catching some with his thumb and then sucking it into his mouth.

Zayn tries to catch his breath as he sits back on Harry's thighs, his hands on his hips like he just had a tiring session at the gym. He shakes his head in laughter and holds up a hand for Harry to give him a high-five because he feels like the day warrants a silly kind of mood.

“You know what I think,” Zayn says breathlessly.

“What.”

“We should start barricading our door some nights, so we can have mornings like this,” he leers.

It’s stupid and Harry laughs as he pulls Zayn down to kiss him. As if they’ll get mornings like this alone, with two kids banging on their door for an hour to hang out in the Big Bed. Not likely.

After the night they had, after the ridiculous charade they came up with, this sort of morning seems rather fitting. They have a bed to themselves, another hour before they have to start packing, and two more orgasms under their belts. Zayn collapses beside Harry, completely spent and ready for a twenty-minute power nap while Harry orders them room service. He rests his eyes for about ten seconds and then he feels Harry curl up to him and rest his chin on Zayn’s chest.

Zayn sighs and opens his eyes.

Harry smiles at him and then gives him a kiss above his nipple. Zayn can always tell when Harry has something on his mind, something he can’t quite voice right away. He kisses at Zayn’s nipple, his frown prominent as always, until Zayn rubs at his hair to say what he needs to say.

“Did you have fun?” Harry murmurs into Zayn’s chest. “Did you… do you think it worked?”

_Did we fix what was wrong? Did we do it right? Can we go home?_

Zayn tugs at Harry’s chin so he’ll look at him again, and smudges a bit of come off of the highest point of Harry’s cheekbone. Without all of the hair, without it curling around his cheeks and obscuring his eyes, it’s like he can see all of Harry, every freckle, wrinkle, worry line, and lip bite. Zayn takes in this wide, clear face asking for his final approval. And as he nods, he knows they one hundred percent will send Dr. Seaver a fruit basket.

“I had the best time,” Zayn says as his answer. “And I love you.”

Harry sighs with relief and then propels himself up to kiss Zayn, their mouths still wet and sticky, and it’s honestly perfect.

 

**11.**

 

Later that morning, they pull up to see all three children playing up on the hill that is the Malik front yard. Spread out on a blanket are Trisha with her knitting, Mazzer basking in the sun, and Harlow, who has Archie sitting in her lap so she can “read” him a book. Archie chews on his fist, his hair sticking up every which way, as Harlow kisses his chubby cheeks and points at pictures because he’s her “favorite brother.” He doesn’t use many words yet, but he loves to point, his other little hand jabbing at the pages of pets as he says “Maz” and “kitty.”

Closer to the house, Sav and Yaser kick a soccer ball back and forth, their cheers heard probably by every neighbor up and down the block. They worried for a while that he might have asthma, with how he wheezes after running and playing in their backyard. But they know now that he just gets excited. Sav can never contain his joy, like his tiny body can’t process it fast enough. Yaser high fives him after he kicks the ball with his left foot, and they’re pleased to see Sav running faster than ever to go chase after it.

They watch for a few moments while still at the curb. It’s an amazing thing, to watch your children from afar, to see the little people they’re becoming without you around to guide them. Harlow in her sundress, screaming for Sav to not run so fast, Archie bouncing in her lap, Sav screaming back to “mind her own business.”

Harry sighs, happy to be near them again. He grips Zayn’s hand in his and kisses it, lips lingering on his ring finger where his wedding band will once again sit. And since it’s sappy and sentimental, Zayn pretends to shove Harry’s face away so they can finally shut off the engine.

When they hop out of the Range Rover, Zayn and Harry no longer have eyes for each other. Their full focus shifts to their children, to Sav’s excited eyes as he spots and then runs towards them coming up the driveway. He jumps into Harry’s arms and wraps his legs around him, as Harry inhales the scent of his hair and holds on tight.

Zayn goes to Harlow first thing, since she’s weighed down by the baby, and kisses her. He pets Maz and grabs for Archie, tosses him into the air so he’ll giggle, and then squeezes him against his chest, to make sure he hasn’t forgotten his baba’s smile after spending a night without him. He does that thing where he says it over and over, “baba, baba, baba,” so Archie will follow along.

They’re lucky that their three children still want them around so much, all in that sweet spot before early adolescence when parents aren’t “cool” anymore. Trisha and Yaser join them in a little huddle near the blanket, as the kids hold onto their legs and tug on their hands. Harlow demands a kiss from Harry and then immediately demands they get ice cream like Zayn promised. Savan holds onto Harry like he won’t ever let go, his eyes wide at his dad’s new haircut and the weird bruise he has on his neck. Harry’s cheeks go red as Sav pokes at it, since he’s standing right next to Zayn’s _father_ , and says they can each have _one_ scoop only.

Zayn snorts a laugh and buries his nose in Archie’s hair.

But when Archie squirms and reaches his arms out as well, for Harry to hold him, Harry ends up with a boy in each arm. Harry kisses Archie over and over, like he too wants to make sure he wasn’t forgotten. Archie giggles and smacks at his face, which Sav says is unfair because the _one_ time he smacked his sister, he got in trouble. Harlow takes that as her cue to be held by Zayn, to tug on the hair of Zayn’s chin as she chastises her brother. And honestly, Harry sort of loves the sound of his two oldest children bickering. It means they really are back to their real lives, back to normal.

When Harlow winds her little arms around Zayn’s neck and asks if they’re gonna go home after their ice cream, she doesn’t see the warm, loving look Zayn and Harry give each other. She doesn’t see the hand Zayn pats at Harry’s ass either, thankfully.

Because yes, they’re all going home.

Everything is fine, they’re all safe, happy, and loved. Their parents are soul mates and they certainly aren’t getting divorced.

Not now and not ever.

 

 

 


End file.
